Story 1: Race Racketeers Shakedown SONY — Reverend Rat Al Sharpton of The Alinsky A Team On The Case — National Action Network Payday — Remember What Happened To Al Capone Reverend Rat — Obama Says SONY Made A Mistake — SONY Responds — Cyber Warfare Is An Act of War Not A Criminal Act — CIA Take Out Anyone? — Lights Out — Videos
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Watch the video about On Air, Entertainment, On The Record, Personality, Greta Van Susteren, Movies,
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Sony Responds To President Obama’s Criticism: “We Had No Choice,” Still Hope To Release ‘The Interview’
by Jen Yamato
Following a public rebuke from President Obama for caving to terrorist demands, Sony Pictures restated their commitment to getting The Interviewseen by audiences. Here’s the studio’s official statement, on the heels of CEO Michael Lynton’s defensive appearance on CNN:
“Sony Pictures Entertainment is and always has been strongly committed to the First Amendment. For more than three weeks, despite brutal intrusions into our company and our employees’ personal lives, we maintained our focus on one goal: getting the film The Interview released. Free expression should never be suppressed by threats and extortion.
The decision not to move forward with the December 25 theatrical release of The Interview was made as a result of the majority of the nation’s theater owners choosing not to screen the film. This was their decision.
Let us be clear – the only decision that we have made with respect to release of the film was not to release it on Christmas Day in theaters, after the theater owners declined to show it. Without theaters, we could not release it in the theaters on Christmas Day. We had no choice.
After that decision, we immediately began actively surveying alternatives to enable us to release the movie on a different platform. It is still our hope that anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so.”
PREVIOUS, 12:44 PM: “We have notcaved,” Sony CEO Michael Lynton said today, defending his company from President Obama’s comment that the studio had “made a mistake” in bowing to terrorist demands over the North Korea-skewering The Interview. “We have not caved. We have not given in. We have persevered, and we have not backed down. We have always had every desire to have the American public see this movie.”
Lynton today explained that when theaters started dropping out, “we had no alternative but to not proceed with the theatrical release on the 25th of December. And that’s all we did.” After the top five exhibitor chains bowed out this week, the studio said on Wednesday they would not be releasing the film.
“The unfortunate part is… The President, the press, and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened. We do not own movie theaters. We cannot decide what will be played in movie theaters,” Lynton told CNN.
In his CNN interview set to air in full on Anderson Cooper’s AC360 at 5PM PT/8PM ET, Lynton made a point of contradicting Obama’s statement that Sony had not asked for his help.
“I did reach out,” said Lynton, who said Sony indeed sought assistance from the President. “We definitely spoke to a senior advisor in the White House to talk about the situation. The White House was certainly aware of the situation.”
In less than four weeks the Sony hacking has devastated the studio, exposing embarrassing and damaging emails, trade secrets, and the personal information of thousands of current and former employees – all supposedly over the political comedy, in which two bumbling journalists are asked to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Would Lynton make the movie again if he had the chance to do this all over?
“Yeah, I would make the movie again,” he said. “I think, you know, for the same reasons we made it in the first place – it was a funny comedy, it served as political satire. I think we would have made the movie again. Knowing what I know now, we might have, uh, done some things slightly differently, but I think a lot of events have overtaken us in a way that we had no control over the facts.”
Lynton says Sony still wants The Interview to be seen and is considering their options. Those include DVD and Blu-ray home video, YouTube, VOD, and other digital platforms but “there has not been one major VOD distributor, one major e-commerce site that has stepped forward and said they are willing to distribute this movie for us,” he said.
“We would still like the public to see this movie, absolutely.”
Story 1, Part 2: Next Year Obama Will Be Impeached Over The CIA Covert Operations in Benghazi — Shipping Arms To Syrian Rebels — MANPADs, for man-portable air-defense systems — Can Shoot down Airliners — Republicans Will Dump Boehner As Speaker — Part 2 — Videos
UPDATED December 7, 2014
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Poll: Half of America Wants Obama Impeached
A new poll from WENZEL POLLS reveals what should have happened years ago: HALF of Americans want Barack Obama’s presidency to end through impeachment. After Benghazi, the IRS scandal, targeting journalists, and violating the Bill of Rights on a daily basis, the American people have had enough.
While impeachment won’t happen until the GOP takes the Senate in 2014, it’s something we absolutely should be focusing on. Remember, the only solution we should have to an out of control president is the constitutional option: impeachment and removal from office.
Still, we don’t yet know the half of it. Obama’s scandals we’ve seen so far have been during his presidency and midst many cover-ups — meaning the truth is likely exponentially worse than we even know.
Either way, the solution to an out of control and imperial presidency is for the Congress to do their duty, defend the American people and the rights protected by the constitution, and remove the president for his constitutional violations.
The faux stone columns from his Denver acceptance speech are crumbling, the fireworks have fizzled and the unadulterated adulation of Barack Obama is a sour feeling of disillusion, as a new poll reveals half of America wants him impeached, including a stunning one in four Democrats.
“It may be early in the process for members of Congress to start planning for impeachment of Barack Obama, but the American public is building a serious appetite for it,” said Fritz Wenzel, of Wenzel Strategies, which did the telephone poll Thursday. It has a margin of error of 4.36 percent.
“Half or nearly half of those surveyed said they believed Obama should be impeached for the trifecta of scandals now consuming Washington.”
It also seems as though the Tea Party truth effort to explain Benghazi is working, especially for independents. From WND once again:
“What is clear from the data is that Obama is at risk of losing his base,” Wenzel explained. “On each of these questions, about one in four Democrats said they agreed Obama should be impeached. What could be more alarming to the White House is that it appears that most of American is tuned in to these issues now, as 93 percent of registered voters said they get at least one news update on these issues every day.”
He continued, “Of the three issues now in the news, the one that has been there the longest, and the only one that has to do with the death of American citizens, is seen as the most important to Americans. While 49 percent said the Benghazi murders of U.S. diplomatic personnel is the most serious issue, 26 percent said IRS harassment was most serious, and 25 percent said the seizure of AP phone records was most serious. With news still breaking on all three fronts, it is impossible to know which of the three scandals will ultimately be the most damaging to the Obama administration. These findings clearly show Americans are concerned about what is going on in Washington.”
Need we say more? Barack Obama deserves to be impeached, the American people are slowly waking up, and the impeach Obama movement is under way. If you support the movement, then please take the first step by sharing this article on Facebook and Twitter.
Even Democrats join surge of dissatisfaction in unprecedented numbers
This is another in a series of “WND/WENZEL POLLS” conducted exclusively for WND by the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies.
The faux stone columns from his Denver acceptance speech are crumbling, the fireworks have fizzled and the unadulterated adulation of Barack Obama is a sour feeling of disillusion, as a new poll reveals half of America wants him impeached, including a stunning one in four Democrats.
“It may be early in the process for members of Congress to start planning for impeachment of Barack Obama, but the American public is building a serious appetite for it,” said Fritz Wenzel, of Wenzel Strategies, which did the telephone poll Thursday. It has a margin of error of 4.36 percent.
“Half or nearly half of those surveyed said they believed Obama should be impeached for the trifecta of scandals now consuming Washington.”
Actually, on the issue of the Benghazi scandal, where four Americans were killed when in what may have been a politically motivated series of moves, a surging danger to Americans at the foreign service facility there was ignored until al-Qaida-linked terrorists attacked, 50.1 percent of Americans said Obama should be impeached. That included 27.6 percent of the responding Democrats.
On the scandal of the Internal Revenue Service intentionally harassing conservative and Christian organizations? Forty-nine percent said they agree that impeachment is appropriate, including 24.4 percent of the Democrats.
And on the fishing trip the Obama administration took into AP reporters’ telephone records in search of something that may well have been done by his own administration, 48.6 percent impeachment is appropriate. That included 26.1 percent of the Democrats.
It was only two months ago that respondents to the same poll suggested, although in smaller numbers, that impeachment was appropriate for other Obama scandals. At that time 44 percent said he should be impeached for his campaign to give amnesty to illegal aliens inside the U.S., and 46 percent said he should be impeached for launching the war to remove Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
“What is clear from the data is that Obama is at risk of losing his base,” Wenzel explained. “On each of these questions, about one in four Democrats said they agreed Obama should be impeached. What could be more alarming to the White House is that it appears that most of American is tuned in to these issues now, as 93 percent of registered voters said they get at least one news update on these issues every day.”
He continued, “Of the three issues now in the news, the one that has been there the longest, and the only one that has to do with the death of American citizens, is seen as the most important to Americans. While 49 percent said the Benghazi murders of U.S. diplomatic personnel is the most serious issue, 26 percent said IRS harassment was most serious, and 25 percent said the seizure of AP phone records was most serious. With news still breaking on all three fronts, it is impossible to know which of the three scandals will ultimately be the most damaging to the Obama administration. These findings clearly show Americans are concerned about what is going on in Washington.”
It spells headwinds for Obama, too, as he lobbies American voters to grant him his wish of having a Democrat Congress during the last two years of his reign, Wenzel said.
“What could be most concerning to the White House is that the Democratic Party effort to retake the U.S. House of Representatives next year may be at risk because of these issues. Asked whether they would lean to vote for the Democrat or the Republican in their own congressional district based on what they know about these three situations, 46 percent said they would lean toward voting for the Republican, while 39 percent said they would lean toward voting for the Democrat. Another 16 percent said these issues make no difference in their congressional vote,” Wenzel said.
He said, “The appetite is growing for impeachment proceedings. It is too early to say it is time for those proceedings to start, but it’s now possible to see that day on the far horizon.”
Of those who did not vote in 2012, based on their knowledge of Obama’s administration now, 37 percent say they would have gone back to vote for Republican Mitt Romney, 27 percent for Obama, and others undecided.
“We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they’re seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration’s credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don’t look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone,” she said.
“The president, as usual, acts as if all of this is totally unconnected to him. He’s shocked, it’s unacceptable, he’ll get to the bottom of it. He read about it in the papers, just like you. But he is not unconnected, he is not a bystander. This is his administration. Those are his executive agencies. He runs the IRS and the Justice Department,” she continued. “A president sets a mood, a tone. He establishes an atmosphere. If he is arrogant, arrogance spreads. If he is too partisan, too disrespecting of political adversaries, that spreads too. Presidents always undo themselves and then blame it on the third guy in the last row in the sleepy agency across town.”
That was confirmed by no less than Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, whose reporting on Watergate eventually snared the sitting president.
Woodward said recently, “If you read through all these emails, you see that everyone in the government is saying, ‘Oh, let’s not tell the public that terrorists were involved, people connected to al Qaeda. Let’s not tell the public that there were warnings.’ And I have to go back 40 years to Watergate when Nixon put out his edited transcripts to the conversations, and he personally went through them and said, ‘Oh, let’s not tell this, let’s not show this.’ I would not dismiss Benghazi. It’s a very serious issue.”
A Republican congressman recently brought up the subject.
“I would say yes. I’m not willing to take it [impeachment] off to take it off the table, but that’s certainly not what we’re striving for,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told CNN.
“We want truth, we want to bring the people who perpetrated the terrorism in Benghazi to be brought to justice, and we want to have the president do what he has said he would always do. And that is be open and transparent. Thus far, the White House has not done that.”
Earlier, Chaffetz was interviewed by the Salt Lake Tribune, and was asked if impeachment were within the realm of possibilities.
“It’s certainly a possibility,” he told the paper. “That’s not the goal but given the continued lies perpetrated by this administration, I don’t know where it’s going to go. … I’m not taking it off the table. I’m not out there touting that but I think this gets to the highest levels of our government and integrity and honesty are paramount.”
Chaffetz has been championing the call to probe the Sept. 11, 2012, onslaught at Benghazi that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Other Republicans have also voiced impeachment as a potential final outcome.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said last week impeachment was possible over the “most egregious cover-up in American history.
“People may be starting to use the I-word before too long,” Inhofe told radio host Rusty Humphries, according to the Hill.
“The I-word meaning impeachment?” Humphries asked.
“Yeah,” Inhofe responded.
Additionally, radio host Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and one-time presidential candidate, predicted Obama won’t serve out his full second term because of his complicity in a cover-up with Benghazi.
Other members of Congress who have uttered possible impeachment for a variety of reasons in recent years include Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas; Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas; Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla.; and Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.
Referring to Obama, Nugent says: “There’s no question that this guy’s violations qualify for impeachment. There’s no question.”
He blasted “the criminality of this government, the unprecedented abuse of power, corruption, fraud and deceit by the Chicago gangster-scammer-ACORN-in-chief.”
“It’s so diabolical,” he said.
Nugent made his comments in a recent interview with radio host Alex Jones.
See Denis Kucinich advocate for impeachment over Libya:
See Texas congressman lobby for impeachment over gun control:
See Andrew Napolitano talk about impeachment over the budget:
WND also compiled a special report on the various offenses Obama is blamed for committing and reported what experts on the Constitution believe should be happening.
Removing an official from office requires two steps: (1) a formal accusation, or impeachment, by the House of Representatives, and (2) a trial and conviction by the Senate. Impeachment requires a majority vote of the House; conviction is more difficult, requiring a two-thirds vote by the Senate. The vice president presides over the Senate proceedings in the case of all officials except the president, whose trial is presided over by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. This is because the vice president can hardly be considered a disinterested party—if his or her boss is forced out of office he or she is next in line for the top job!The right to impeach public officials is secured by the U.S. Constitution in Article I, Sections 2 and 3, which discuss the procedure, and in Article II, Section 4, which indicates the grounds for impeachment: “the President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
What Are “High Crimes and Misdemeanors?”
Bribery, perjury, and treason are among the least ambiguous reasons meriting impeachment, but the ocean of wrongdoing encompassed by the Constitution’s stipulation of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is vast. Abuse of power and serious misconduct in office fit this category, but one act that is definitely not grounds for impeachment is partisan discord. Several impeachment cases have confused political animosity with genuine crimes. Since Congress, the vortex of partisanship, is responsible for indicting, trying, and convicting public officials, it is necessary for the legislative branch to temporarily cast aside its factional nature and adopt a judicial role.
The Infamous Sixteen
Since 1797 the House of Representatives has impeached sixteen federal officials. These include two presidents, a cabinet member, a senator, a justice of the Supreme Court, and eleven federal judges. Of those, the Senate has convicted and removed seven, all of them judges. Not included in this list are the office holders who have resigned rather than face impeachment, most notably,President Richard M. Nixon.
The Small Fry
The first official impeached in this country was Senator William Blount of Tennessee for a plot to help the British seize Louisiana and Florida from Spain in 1797. The Senate dismissed the charges on Jan. 14, 1799, determining that it had no jurisdiction over its own members. The Senate and the House do, however, have the right to discipline their members, and the Senate expelled Blount the day after his impeachment.
Judge John Pickering of New Hampshire was the first impeached official actually convicted. He was found guilty of drunkenness and unlawful rulings, on March 12, 1804, and was believed to have been insane.
Associate Justice Samuel Chase, a strong Federalist, was impeached but acquitted of judicial bias against anti-Federalists. The acquittal on March 1, 1805, established that political differences were not grounds for impeachment.
Johnson, a Southern Democrat who became president after Lincoln’s assassination, supported a mild policy of Reconstruction after the Civil War. The Radical Republicans in Congress were furious at his leniency toward ex-Confederates and obvious lack of concern for ex-slaves, demonstrated by his veto of civil rights bills and opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment. To protect Radical Republicans in Johnson’s administration and diminish the strength of the president, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867, which prohibited the president from dismissing office holders without the Senate’s approval. A defiant Johnson tested the constitutionality of the Act by attempting to oust Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. His violation of the Act became the basis for impeachment in 1868. But the Senate was one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict, and Johnson was acquitted May 26, 1868.
Senator Charles Sumner, witness to the proceedings, defined them as “political in character.” Historians today generally agree with his assessment and consider the grounds for Johnson’s impeachment flimsy—the Tenure of Office Act was partially repealed in 1887,and then declared unconstitutional in 1926.
Bill Clinton was ultimately dragged down—though not defeated—by the character issues brought into question even before his election. An investigation into some suspect real estate dealings in which Clinton was involved prior to his presidency failed to turn up any implicating evidence. However, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr managed to unravel a tangled web of alleged sexual advances and affairs in Clinton’s past. The trail led to former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky. After months of denials, including in a videotaped legal testimony, Clinton admitted in August of 1998 that he had had a sexual relationship with the young woman during the time of her internship.
The infamous “Starr Report” outlining the findings of the Independent Counsel’s investigation was delivered to the House of Representatives on Sept. 9, 1998, and subsequently made available to the public. Many felt the report, filled with lurid details of Clinton’s sexual encounters with Lewinsky, to be a political attack against the President rather than a legal justification for his impeachment. Of the 11 possible grounds for impeachment cited by Starr, four were eventually approved by the House Judiciary Committee: grand jury perjury, civil suit perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power.
On December 19, following much debate over the constitutionality of the proceedings and whether or not Clinton could be punished by censure rather than impeachment, the House of Representatives held its historic vote. Clinton was impeached on two counts, grand jury perjury (228–206) and obstruction of justice (221–212), with the votes split along party lines. The Senate Republicans, however, were unable to gather enough support to achieve the two-thirds majority required for his conviction. On Feb. 12, 1999, the Senate acquitted President Clinton on both counts. The perjury charge failed by a vote of 55–45, with 10 Republicans voting against impeachment along with all 45 Democrats. The obstruction of justice vote was 50–50, with 5 Republicans breaking ranks to vote against impeachment.
The One That Got Away
Of thirty-five attempts at impeachment, only nine have come to trial. Because it cripples Congress with a lengthy trial, impeachment is infrequent. Many officials, seeing the writing on the wall, resign rather than face the ignominy of a public trial.
The most famous of these cases is of course that of President Richard Nixon, a Republican. After five men hired by Nixon’s reelection committee were caught burglarizing Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate Complex on June 17, 1972, President Nixon’s subsequent behavior—his cover-up of the burglary and refusal to turn over evidence—led the House Judiciary Committee to issue three articles of impeachment on July 30, 1974. The document also indicted Nixon for illegal wiretapping, misuse of the CIA, perjury, bribery, obstruction of justice, and other abuses of executive power. “In all of this,” the Articles of Impeachment summarize, “Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.” Impeachment appeared inevitable, and Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. The Articles of Impeachment, which can be viewed at http://watergate.info/, leave no doubt that these charges qualify as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” justifying impeachment.
The September 11, 2012 attacks on the special diplomatic facility and the CIA Annex in Benghazi were provoked by Obama’s efforts to restrict weapons flows to Syrian rebels for fear that success by muslim jihadists in Syria would undermine/discredit the central message of Obama’s reelection campaign–Osama is dead and al Qaeda is on the run. Let me connect the dots for you.
We will start with Obama’s January 2012 State of the Union address. That marked the first rollout of his catch phrase abouttrouncing the muslim jihadists.
President Obama last night in his State of the Union address signaled what he’ll run on this year, and he’s going to take that message on the road with stops in five battleground states over the next three days. Last night’s speech, focused on economic fairness with the president trying to sound like an optimistic populist. He delivered the speech with the confidence of a president who, in his most complete way yet, took credit for what he believes are his best accomplishments — killing Osama bin Laden, ending the war in Iraq, the auto industry’s turnaround, private-sector job growth (especially in manufacturing), cutting the deficit by more than $2 trillion, and new rules for Wall Street.
He also insisted that “Al Qaeda was on the run.”
However, Syria quickly was emerging a a problem that would pose a potentially significant risk to his campaign.
SAUDI Arabia and Qatar have agreed to fund the Syrian opposition, which is struggling to afford weapons in its fight against President Bashar al-Assad, a Syrian dissident has told The Times.
Opposition figures held a secret meeting with Saudi and Qatar officials after an Arab League meeting in Cairo last weekend. All the Gulf countries decided then to pull their observers from a monitoring mission that has been widely criticised for being toothless.
“The Saudis are offering their support in any way,” said the dissident, who asked not to be named.
Until now the Free Syrian Army has been funded largely by individual donors, many of them in the Syrian diaspora, enabling small arms to be bought on the black market in Lebanon.
“At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians [opposition] requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.”
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.” (January 29, 2012).
A Syria policy committee chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton involves the participation of Ambassador Robert Stephen Ford, CIA director David Petraeus, Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and Derek Chollet, Principal Deputy Director of Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff at the State Department.
Under Jeffrey Feltman’s supervision, the actual recruitment of terrorist mercenaries, however, is carried out in Qatar and Saudi Arabia in liaison with senior intelligence officials from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya and NATO. The former ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar, who remains a key member of Saudi intelligence, is said to be working with the Feltman group in Doha.
Prince Bandar, a Saudi, was the key interlocutor in this process. He has had longstanding, close ties with John Brennan, who was a senior deputy in the National Security Council during this period. The Saudis made it very clear to the United States that they were going to ramp up their support for rebels in Syria, working in concert with Turkey, and that they wanted the Untied States to support this effort. Specifically, they wanted US assistance in gathering weapons that could be moved from Libya to Syria via Turkey.
The CIA, working with the NSC and the State, put together the proposed plan during February. By early March 2012, the plan had been approved, signed off by President Obama and briefed to a select group in Congress (according to Sy Hersh, only 8 members of the House and Senate were briefed). CIA Director David Petraeus was sent to Turkey to brief the plan and kick things off:
Petraeus met Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday for closed-door talks focusing on the crisis across the border in Syria.
Petraeus, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, also discussed the latest developments in neighbouring Iran and efforts to counter Kurdish rebels attacking Turkey from safe havens in northern Iraq, said NTV television channel.
US embassy spokesman T.J. Grubisha said Petraeus met with Erdogan and Turkish National Intelligence Organisation chief Hakan Fidan and “discussed areas of mutual concern, including regional security issues and counter-terrorism cooperation.
“They foresee even closer and more fruitful cooperation on the region’s most pressing issues in the coming months.”
Erdogan has been fiercely critical of the Syrian regime’s year-long crackdown on the opposition and has called on President Bashar al-Assad to quit.
The talks were not part of Erdogan’s official itinerary. The premier’s office declined to comment on the report.
Agence France Presse — English
March 13, 2012 Tuesday 5:31 PM GMT
CIA chief meets Turkish PM on Syrian crisis
Shoulder fired surface to air missiles aka MANPADS previously collected as part of a State Department directed program were still in Libya. Starting in June of 2012, some of these missiles made their way to Syria rebels. Al Arabiya reported on 31 July 2012:
Rebels fighting to depose Syrian president Bashar al Assad have for the first time acquired a small supply of surface-to-air missiles, according to a news report that a Western official did not dispute, as the U.N. General Assembly said it will hold a meeting on the crisis in Syria this week.
NBC News reported Tuesday night that the rebel Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen of the weapons, which were delivered to them via neighboring Turkey, whose moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad’s departure with increasing vehemence. Indications are that the U.S. government, which has said it opposes arming the rebels, is not responsible for the delivery of the missiles. But some U.S. government sources have been saying for weeks that Arab governments seeking to oust Assad have been pressing for such missiles, also known as MANPADs, for man-portable air-defense systems, to be supplied to the rebels. In recent days, air operations against the rebels by Syrian government forces appear to have been stepped up, particularly around the contested city of Aleppo, making the rebels’ need for MANPADs more urgent.
To understand the curious reaction of the Obama Administration, you must first understand the discrepancy between what the intelligence community was reporting and the propaganda the media was spreading. If you only had access to media reports during the July-August 2012 period, you would think that the rebels were growing in strength and were only weeks from overthrowing Assad. Had this happened, it would have been vindication of Barack Obama’s support of the so-called Arab Spring.
But the intelligence community analysts, especially at DIA, were telling a very different story. Two trends were emerging. First, the rebels were faltering. Second, and more alarming, the muslim extremists–groups like al Nusra and Al Qaeda in Iraq and ISIS–were gaining strength. By the end of August there was genuine worry in the Obama National Security team that his claim, “Al Qaeda is on the run” could blow up in his face.
President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing US support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, US sources familiar with the matter said. Obama’s order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence “finding,” broadly permits the CIA and other US agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad. This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad’s armed opponents – a shift that intensified following last month’s failure of the UN Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against Damascus. The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some US allies do just that. But US and European officials have said that there have been noticeable improvements in the coherence and effectiveness of Syrian rebel groups in the past few weeks. That represents a significant change in assessments of the rebels by Western officials, who previously characterized Assad’s opponents as a disorganized, almost chaotic, rabble. US media reported earlier in the year that the CIA was vetting arms supplied by Gulf Arab states and Turkey to ensure weapons did not fall into the hands of al-Qaeda. But Islamist militants have gained ground in Syria nonetheless, with several media reports in the past fortnight pointing to a growing al-Qaeda presence within the rebellion. Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined.
The political operatives at the White House were taking no chances. CIA Director Petraeus was dispatched back to Turkey to ensure that the program supporting the rebels was more tightly controlled and that the Islamic extremists were cut off. According to the Cihan News Agency, Petraeus arrived in Turkey on 2 September:
United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director David Petraeus arrived in Istanbul on Sunday. Petraeus’s private plane landed at the Istanbul International Airport with an army flight. He is expected to hold talks with Turkish officials over the Syria crisis and fight against terrorism. This is the second unannounced visit by the top US spy to Turkey in the last six months.
The message delivered was direct–Turkey was to ensure that no further weapons were provided to the Islamic rebels until after the election of Barack Obama.
We have further evidence of the coordination of this effort with the US Embassy in Libya. According to the Accountability Review Board, State Department Commmunicator, Sean Smith, was dispatched to Benghazi. It was anticipated that Ambassador Stevens would be coming to Benghazi within the next week. Smith’s job was to ensure he could communicate securely with Washington. Smith went to Benghazi while Stevens remained in Tripoli, awaiting an update/brief from CIA Director Petraeus on the results of the meeting with the Turks.
Unfortunately, someone on the Turkish side let the Islamic rebels know that they were being cutoff and blamed it on America. The info was communicated to them sometime after 4 September. That lit the fuze that led to the attacks on 11 September. Leaders of Ansar Al Sharia and Al Qaeda were going to show the United States that there was a cost for interfering in their holy war against Assad.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton failed to anticipate this result. When the attack commenced, both State and the White House were panicked. They immediately realized that this attack could blow a hole in the Obama narrative that Al Qaeda was on the run. There was no other alternative but to pretend that this was not a terrorist attack and that it had nothing to do with US clandestine support for rebels is Syria.
Syria’s FSA reportedly got surface-to-air missiles, U.N. to convene over crisis
Wednesday, 01 August 2012
By AL ARABIYA WITH AGENCIES
Rebels fighting to depose Syrian president Bashar al Assad have for the first time acquired a small supply of surface-to-air missiles, according to a news report that a Western official did not dispute, as the U.N. General Assembly said it will hold a meeting on the crisis in Syria this week.
NBC News reported Tuesday night that the rebel Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen of the weapons, which were delivered to them via neighboring Turkey, whose moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad’s departure with increasing vehemence.
Indications are that the U.S. government, which has said it opposes arming the rebels, is not responsible for the delivery of the missiles.
But some U.S. government sources have been saying for weeks that Arab governments seeking to oust Assad have been pressing for such missiles, also known as MANPADs, for man-portable air-defense systems, to be supplied to the rebels.
In recent days, air operations against the rebels by Syrian government forces appear to have been stepped up, particularly around the contested city of Aleppo, making the rebels’ need for MANPADs more urgent.
Precisely what kind of MANPADs have been delivered to Syrian rebels is unclear and NBC News did not provide details. Such weapons range from the primitive to highly sophisticated.
And even if the rebels do have the weapons, it is unclear whether they have the training to operate them effectively against Assad’s air forces in the immediate future, according to Reuters.
Some conservative U.S. lawmakers, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have criticized the administration of President Barack Obama for moving too slowly to assist the rebels and have suggested the U.S. government become directly involved in arming Assad’s opponents.
The White House, at least until now, has taken a considerably more cautious approach.
As of last month, U.S. officials warned that if any Middle Eastern nation was “even considering giving arms to the Syrian opposition,” it ought to “take a measured approach and think twice about providing arms that could have unintended consequences.”
Nonetheless, even at that time, U.S. and allied officials acknowledged that some Arab officials were discussing whether surface-to-air missiles might help Syrian rebels bring down Russian-made helicopters and other aircraft the Syrian army was using to move troops between trouble spots.
Following the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, some intelligence experts estimated that as many as 10,000-15,000 MANPADs sets were looted from Libyan government stockpiles. The whereabouts of most of these are unknown.
Many U.S. officials have been wary of the notion of arming Syrian rebels with MANPADs, noting that they could be easily turned on targets other than the Syrian government, including civilian airliners.
After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the CIA provided sophisticated shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to Islamic militants seeking to oust Soviet troops.
The missiles proved deadly against Soviet helicopter gunships, but subsequently became a major headache for U.S. and western counter-terrorism agencies when anti-Soviet militants morphed into anti-Western militants.
Recent intelligence and news reporting has suggested a growing number of militants, including some affiliated with al-Qaeda, have traveled to Syria to try to join anti-Assad forces. U.S. officials have said, however, that they do not believe the militants yet play a dominant role in the Syrian opposition.
Meanwhile, the U.N. General Assembly said late Tuesday it will hold a meeting on the crisis in Syria this week and diplomats say it will likely vote on a Saudi-drafted resolution that condemns the Security Council for failing to take action against Damascus.
The 193-nation assembly’s press office said the meeting on Syria’s 16-month-old conflict would occur at 10:00 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Thursday.
U.N. diplomats told Reuters the assembly was expected to vote on a draft resolution that voices “grave concern at the escalation of violence in the Syrian Arab Republic, in particular the continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights.”
The latest draft, dated July 30, was penned by Saudi Arabia, which is openly supporting the rebel forces fighting to oust Assad.
The draft resolution would also have the assembly “expressing grave concern at the Syrian authorities’ threat to use chemical or biological weapons.” Damascus recently acknowledged having chemical arms, but said it would only use such weapons if it was attacked by foreign powers.
The assembly meeting comes after Russia and China on July 19 used their Security Council veto powers for the third time to strike down a Western-backed draft resolution that would have threatened Syrian authorities with sanctions if they failed to halt the violence.
The Saudi draft resolution would also have the assembly “deploring the Security Council failure to agree on measures to ensure the Syrian authorities’ compliance with its decisions” calling for an end to the violence. That condemnation, Western envoys say, is aimed at Moscow and Beijing.
Unlike Security Council resolutions, which can be legally binding, General Assembly resolutions are non-binding. But there are no vetoes in the assembly and only a simple majority is needed to pass them.
Western diplomats say they hope a strong majority vote in the assembly for a resolution condemning Syria and the Security Council would increase the pressure on Russia and China to stop shielding Assad from sanctions.
The Saudi resolution also reiterates the Arab League’s calls for Assad to step down and allow a political transition to a democratic government.
The draft text urges both the government forces and rebels to stop the violence, though it focuses its criticism on Assad’s government.
Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Jaafari has repeatedly accused Nassir Abdul Aziz al-Nasser of Qatar, president of the General Assembly, of using his position to push the Qatari national agenda.
The president ignored a law – which he signed last year – requiring him to notify Congress 30 days before releasing anyone from Guantanamo Bay
The Obama administration never told Capitol Hill until after Bergdahl was in American custody and the US Taliban prisoners were preparing to leave
A former federal prosecutor told MailOnline that while the 30-day-notice law is probably unconstitutional, putting enemy combatants back in a position to harm Americans is an impeachable offense
A White House insider said Obama administration officials didn’t anticipate how controversial Bergdahl’s rescue would be, and compared it to the 1981 release of 52 US hostages in Iran
Since Saturday several of Bergdahl’s former military comrades have said he was an Army deserter, and some have speculated that he also aimed to join with the Taliban in Afghanistan
An official Pentagon report concluded in 2010 that Bergdahl ‘walked away,’ so little effort was made to retrieve him, according to the AP
(Daily Mail) – Barack Obama broke a federal law that he signed just six months ago when he authorized the release of five high-ranking Taliban terror targets from the Guantanamo Bay detention center in exchange for the return of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, senior congressional Republicans claimed today.
And the president may also have written a new chapter in the case for his own impeachment, according to a former federal prosecutor who helped bring the 1993 World Trade Center bombers to justice.
‘The return of senior terrorists to the Taliban [is] … a “high crime and misdemeanor”,’ author Andrew C. McCarthy told MailOnline.
His book ‘Faithless Execution: Building the case for Obama’s impeachment,’ is set to be published Tuesday.
President Barack Obama made Jani and Bob Bergdahl happy by rescuing their son but was the operation part of a highly suspect maneuvering by the military and White House?
Derelection of duty? Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel (C) made press statements aboard a military aircraft but failed to notify Congress that five Guantanamo Bay detainees would be walking free
Obama ‘clearly violated laws which require him to notify Congress thirty days before any transfer of terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, and to explain how the threat posed by such terrorists has been substantially mitigated,’ House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Buck McKeon of California and Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma said Saturday.
‘Our joy at Sergeant Berghdal’s release is tempered by the fact that President Obama chose to ignore the law, not to mention sound policy, to achieve it.’
What makes the news more controversial still is that many do not see Bergdahl as a hero. Instead he has been branded a ‘deserter’ by many of his former comrades.
An official Pentagon report in 2010 concluded that he ‘walked away’ from his post, so the U.S. Army did not exert any extraordinary efforts to find him after an initial flurry of searches, according to an insider who spoke to the Associated Press.
And at least six soldiers lost their lives in circumstances related to the Idaho native’s disappearance from his post on June 30, 2009. Parents of one dead military men were told that their son perished in a mission aimed at taking down a Taliban target, not capturing a deserter.
With the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance no longer in any substantial doubt, the remaining outrage has focused on the Obama administration’s decision to trade five high-value Taliban terror detainees for him – several years after the Pentagon decided he wasn’t worth recovering.
Yet it appears the administration believed it would win a PR victory big enough to eclipse any legalistic hand-wringing on Capitol Hill, and whatever objections might surface among the military rank-and-file.
A White House official told MailOnline on Monday morning that Obama’s deputies were caught flatfooted by the intensity of public outrage in some quarters after Bergdahl’s rescue by Special Forces.
‘Everyone thought this would be a January 1981 moment,’ the insider said, referring to the negotiated release of 52 U.S. hostages in Iran after 444 days in captivity.
Backlash: Some of the men who served with Bowe Bergdahl are furious that he is being hailed as a hero and claim that he deserted his post
Bergdahl, the last American hostage from the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, was released this weekend in a prisoner exchange that saw five Guantanamo terrorism suspects freed
The United States won their freedom by releasing about $8 billion in Iranian assets that were frozen during the hostage standoff, and immunizing the Iranian government from any lawsuits that might be filed after the crisis was over.
‘Reagan negotiated with terrorists in the weeks before he took office,’ the official said. ‘I don’t remember anyone objecting at the time. They just wanted our people home.’
What the White House didn’t count on was a cadre of Bergdahl’s former platoon-mates coming forward and describing him as a dishonorable soldier beyond redemption.
The law Obama is accused of breaking, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2013, requires Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to ‘notify the appropriate committees of Congress … not later than 30 days before the transfer or release’ of detainees from Guantanamo.
Hagel is required to explain why prisoners are being let go, why it’s ‘in the national security interests of the United States,’ and what the administration has done ‘to mitigate the risks’ that the terror targets will ‘re-engage’ in war against the U.S.
Obama signed the lengthy law in December – it sets budgets and policy for the entire Defense Department – but issued a statement saying that he thought the notification requirement was unfair.
‘[I]n certain circumstances,,’ he wrote, it ‘would violate constitutional separation of powers principles. The executive branch must have the flexibility, among other things, to act swiftly in conducting negotiations with foreign countries regarding the circumstances of detainee transfers.’
Congress had moved significantly in the president’s direction, compared with the previous year’s NDAA. That law expressly forbade the administration from spending any money to release enemy combatants to foreign countries from Guantanamo.
Now Obama can make his move, provided he keeps Congress in the loop – which by all accounts he failed to do.
Administration officials were quick to assert that an emergency related to Bergdahl’s health made convening a war council impracticable.
‘We had reason to be concerned that this was an urgent and acute situation,’ National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Sunday on ABC.
‘Had we waited and lost him, I don’t think anybody would have forgiven the United States government.’
But Monday morning on CNN, outgoing White House Press Secretary Jay Carney couldn’t back up that assertion.
‘Now that you have him,’ host Chris Cuomo asked, ‘have they been able to diagnose anything that substantiated the concerns?’
‘Well, you know, I think at this point, Chris,’ Carney said, ‘we need to allow for Sergeant Bergdahl to recover privately. Out of respect for him and his family. we’re not going to get into details of that process. We’re just thrilled that he is back.’
It’s not flouting the defense law that upsets McCarthy, the prosecutor-turned-author.
War criminal?: Mohammad Fazi is believed to have been at the command of a mass killing
He thinks the NDAA itself is unconstitutional since it forbade Obama from moving chess pieces around the battlefield – instead of continuing to prohibit him from spending money to do it, which is Congress’ job.
But putting senior Taliban leaders back in a position to harm U.S. national interests, McCarthy argues, could be Obama’s undoing.
‘I don’t think it’s an impeachable offense for violating the NDAA,’ he told MailOnline.
‘Congress unconstitutionally restricted the president’s war power over the disposition of enemy combatants.’
‘They could have properly done it by using the power of the purse to deny funds for the transfers, but that’s not what they did [this time].’
But transferring the five high-value prisoners to Qatar, as Obama has authorized, ‘violates the law against material support to terrorism,’ McCarthy said.
‘And because high crimes and misdemeanors are not statutory offenses but political wrongs that endanger the United States, the return of senior terrorists to the Taliban while we still have soldiers in harm’s way is, in my view, a “high crime and misdemeanor”.
Article Two of the United States Constitution provides Congress with a way to remove officials, including the president, from the executive branch.
‘The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,’ it reads in part.
A ‘high’ crime is one that only a person in a position of power or authority can commit.
American history has seen only three serious attempts at impeachment: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Nixon resigned before he could be removed from the White House over the Watergate affair. The U.S. Senate failed to gather the two-thirds majority required to convict (and depose) either Clinton or Johnson.
McCarthy said he’s spoiled for choice with Obama’s impeachable offenses, and the Bergdahl affair doesn’t crack the top tier.
‘If it was a standalone, I would never impeach based solely on it, but I would add it to a larger indictment,’ he told MailOnline.
That indictment, laid out in his book, includes references to Obamacare’s ‘multiple unilaterally decreed amendments,’ security failures in Benghazi, ‘a Department of Justice that has covered up the Fast & Furious scandal’ and the ‘selective targeting’ of conservative groups by the IRS.
Bizarre: Bowe Bergdahl was ‘made to dance,’ his former ballet teacher told MailOnline of the wayward soldier
But he’s under no illusion that the release of five Taliban in exchange for a U.S. soldier who may have deserted his post and plotted to join with the enemy will suddenly bring out the peasants and their pitchforks.
And the lessons of Republicans’ failed effort to remove President Bill Clinton from power, he says, must not be forgotten.
‘The error to avoid is not the endeavor to remove a rogue president,’ he told MailOnline. ‘It is the endeavor to remove a rogue president without first having convinced the public that his removal is warranted – that the punishment fits the crime.’
He wrote Monday in the New York Post that ‘at this point, impeachment seems farfetched. … You can prove a thousand impeachable offenses, but absent the public will to remove the president from power, impeachment is a non-starter.’
‘The political case for ousting a president must be built. That is a good deal tougher than building the legal case.’
ncreasingly, across this city, the “I” word is being heard.
Impeachment is being brought up by Republicans outraged over Barack Obama’s usurpations of power and unilateral rewriting of laws. And Obama is taunting John Boehner and the GOP: “So sue me.”
Democrats are talking impeachment to rally a lethargic base to come out and vote this fall to prevent Republicans from taking control of the Senate, and with it the power to convict an impeached president.
Still, Republicans should drop the talk of impeachment.
For the GOP would gain nothing and risk everything if the people began to take seriously their threats to do to Barack Obama what Newt Gingrich’s House did to Bill Clinton.
The charges for which a president can be impeached and removed from office, are “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
With Bill Clinton, the impeachers had a solid case of perjury.
With Richard Nixon, they had a preponderance of evidence that, at least for a time, he had sought to obstruct justice in the investigation of the Watergate break-in.
Article II of the impeachment of Richard Nixon was for misuse of the IRS in what turned out to be futile and failed attempts to have the agency harass political enemies by having them audited.
As yet there is no evidence Obama knew of the IRS plot to delay and deny tax exemptions to Tea Party groups, which would be an abuse of power and a trampling upon the constitutional rights of Tea Partiers, who were denied the equal protection of the laws.
The GOP response to the lost emails of Lois Lerner and crashed computers that went missing should be a drumbeat of demands for the appointment of an independent counsel, not an impeachment committee in the House.
Obama claims he did not learn of the IRS abuse until years after it began, and weeks after his White House staff learned of it.
In the absence of those emails, the claim cannot be refuted.
In the Benghazi scandal, the president’s defense is the same.
He had no idea what was going on. And cluelessness appears here to be a credible defense. Two weeks after the Benghazi atrocity, Obama was at the U.N. still parroting the Susan Rice line about an anti-Muslim video having been the cause of it all.
Has the president unilaterally rewritten the Obamacare law, while ignoring the Congress that wrote it? Indeed, he has.
But would a Republican Party that failed and folded when it tried to use its legitimate power of the purse to defund Obamacare really stand firm in an Antietam battle to impeach a president of the United States?
Or is this just “beer talk”?
Impeachment is in the last analysis a political act.
The impeachment of Nixon was a coup d’etat by liberal enemies who, though repudiated and routed by the electorate in 1972, still retained the institutional power to break him and destroy his presidency.
And, undeniably, he gave them the tools.
In the case of Nixon, political enemies controlled both houses of the Congress.
Washington was a hostile city. Though he had swept 49 states, Nixon lost D.C. 3-to-1. The bureaucracy built up in the New Deal and Great Society was deep-dyed Democratic.
Most crucially, the Big Media whose liberal bias had been exposed by Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were hell-bent on revenge.
All three power centers — the bureaucracy, Congress, the Big Media — worked in harness to bring Nixon down.
No such powerful and hostile coalition exits today with Obama.
In 2008, Obama carried D.C. 24-to-1 over John McCain. The While House Correspondents Association has at times behaved like an Obama super PAC. Liberal Democrats dominate the bureaucracy and control the Senate.
Any Republican attempt at impeachment would go up against a stacked deck. And the GOP would be throwing away a winning hand for a losing one.
For while the American people have shown no interest in impeaching Obama, they are coming to believe they elected an incompetent executive and compulsive speechmaker who does not know what the presidency requires and who equates talk with action.
With the economy shrinking 3 percent in the first quarter, with Obama sinking in public approval, and with the IRS, NSA and VA scandals bubbling, why would Republicans change the subject to impeachment?
The effect would be to enrage and energize the Democratic base, bring out the African-American vote in force and cause the major media to charge the GOP with a racist scheme to discredit and destroy our first black president.
Does the GOP really want a fight on that turf, when they currently hold the high ground? If you are winning an argument, why change the subject?
If the nation is led to believe Republicans seek to gain the Senate so they can remove Barack Obama from office after a GOP-led impeachment, then Republicans are not likely to win the Senate.
Maybe that is why the Democrats are wailing about impeachment.
“I disagree,” Boehner said when asked by reporters Wednesday morning. When a reporter pointed out that some House Republicans also are calling for impeachment, Boehner said again: “I disagree.”
Boehner’s comments came after Palin said Tuesday night on Fox News that the speaker’s planned lawsuit against Obama over his use of executive power is a weak maneuver. “You don’t bring a lawsuit to a gunfight,” she said. “There’s no place for lawyers on the front lines.”
Palin is hardly the first GOP politician to raise the issue of impeachment over the past couple years. As The Post’s Aaron Blake has noted, others include Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Reps. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.), Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.), Michael Burgess (R-Tex.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), former congressmen Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and Allen West (R-Fla.), and the South Dakota Republican Party. Not everyone explicitly called for Obama’s impeachment, but they have suggested that it should be considered.
In October 2010, prior to the elections in which Republicans won control of the House, Jonathan Chait published an article in The New Republic called “Scandal TBD” where he predicted that if Republicans were to win control of the House, and Barack Obama were to win re-election in 2012, the Republicans would try to impeach Obama and use any reason possible as pretext.[3]
2010: Darrell Issa
In May 2010, Republican Darrell Issa of California stated that the allegation that the White House had offered Pennsylvania Representative Joe Sestak a job to persuade Sestak to drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary election against Arlen Specter “is one that everyone from Arlen Spector to Dick Morris has said is in fact a crime, and could be impeachable”.[4] With the possibility of becoming chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in January 2011, Issa said in October 2010 that the committee would not seek to impeach Obama.[5]
2011: Michael C. Burgess
In August 2011, Republican Congressman Michael C. Burgess of Texas stated that the impeachment of Barack Obama “needs to happen” in order to prevent Obama from “pushing his agenda”. Burgess did not mention any grounds for impeachment.[6]
2012: Jon Kyl
In June 2012, Senator Jon Kyl said on the Bill Bennettradio show that “impeachment is always a possibility” when discussing the Obama Administration policy on immigration.[7]
May 2013: James Inhofe, Benghazi attack
In May 2013, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma stated that President Obama “could be impeached over what he alleged was a White House cover-up after last year’s attack in Benghazi, Libya”.[2] Inhofe said that “of all the great cover-ups in history—the Pentagon papers, Iran-Contra, Watergate, all the rest of them—this … is going to go down as most egregious cover-up in American history”.[2] Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah also stated in an interview that impeachment was “within the realm of possibilities” with regard to the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, Libya, later clarifying that “it’s not something I’m seeking” and that “I’m not willing to take that off the table. But that’s certainly not what we’re striving for.”[8]
August 2013: Tom Coburn, Blake Farenthold, Kerry Bentivolio
In August 2013, Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma responded to a questioner in a town hall meeting, who had asserted that President Obama was failing to carry out his constitutional responsibilities, by saying that “you have to establish the criteria that would qualify for proceedings against the president… and that’s called impeachment”.[9][10] Coburn added, “I don’t have the legal background to know if that rises to ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’, but I think you’re getting perilously close”.[9] Coburn did not specify what grounds he felt would support impeachment, but NBC News noted that Coburn “mentioned that he believes Department of Homeland Security officials have told career USCIS employees to ‘ignore’ background checks for immigrants”. Coburn mentioned no evidence that substantiated his belief.[9]
At a town hall meeting with constituents, Congressman Blake Farenthold said that Obama should be impeached due to issues with Obama’s birth certificate. Farenthold said that he thinks that “the House is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue.”[11]
On August 19, 2013, Republican Congressman Kerry Bentivolio stated that if he could write articles of impeachment, “it would be a dream come true”. To help in achieving that goal, he retained experts and historians.[12][13]
During the month, there was also a book published called Impeachable Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Obama from Office which was written by Aaron Klein and Brenda Elliot.[14][15]
December 2013
On December 3, 2013, ‘the House Judiciary committee held a hearing on Obama, formally titled “The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws,” that has been viewed as an attempt to begin justifying impeachment proceedings.[16]
June 2014: South Dakota Republican Party, Allen West
The convention of the South Dakota Republican Party voted in a 196-176 resolution to call for the impeachment of Obama based on his bypassing of congress to release five terrorists from Guantanamo Bay in order to free Bowe Bergdahl from his Taliban captors.[17][18]. Such a view is held by former member Allen West of the United States House of Representatives from Florida’s 22nd congressional district who stated on his website: “Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that Barack Hussein Obama’s unilateral negotiations with terrorists and the ensuing release of their key leadership without consult — mandated by law — with the U.S. Congress represents high crimes and misdemeanors, an impeachable offense.”[19]. There is also a lawsuit being imposed to sue Obama by Speaker of the HouseJohn Boehner because of his executive actions,[20][21] however, Boehner claims that he is not calling for his impeachment,[22][23] but commentators have still called it a “impeachment dress rehearsal”.[24][25] Obama has recently publicly called this action a stunt.[26][27][28]
In the beginning of the month, a book was published called Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment which is written by Andrew C. McCarthy.[29]
July 2014: Sarah Palin
On July 8th, 2014 the former Governor of Alaska and the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 Presidential electionSarah Palin publicly called for Obama’s impeachment.[30] In a full statement, she has said: “It’s time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment.”[31] This public statement comes after concerns over illegal immigration and Obama’s extensive use of ‘executive actions’.[32] She first expressed her views on the blogsite Breitbart[33] and she has also appeared in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity on his newshow Hannity[34]
Story 1: Next Year Obama Will Be Impeached Over The CIA Covert Operations in Benghazi — Shipping Arms To Syrian Rebels — MANPADs, for man-portable air-defense systems — Can Shoot down Airliners — Republicans Will Dump Boehner As Speaker — Videos
The Case for Impeaching Barack Obama (Part 1)
BILL WHITTLE: WHY BENGHAZI MATTERS
SYRIA Retired General Suspects A US Covert Operation For Running Libya Arms To Syria
SYRIA CNBC: Benghazi Is Not About Libya But An Operation To Put Arms & Men In Syria
Glenn Beck Why Obama Hid the Truth of Benghazi
Treason Exposed! Obama Used Benghazi Attack to Cover Up Arms Shipments to Muslim Brotherhood
‘Halt an Imperial Presidency’, Impeach Obama – Sarah Palin 7-8-2014
Rush: Despite Obama’s ‘Lawlessness’ GOP Refuses To Impeach Because He’s Black Current News
Boehner On Calls For Obama’s Impeachment: ‘I Disagree’
Boehner To Sue Obama Over Executive Action
Boehner Mocks GOP Stance on Immigration Reform
Barack Obama Dismisses John Boehner Lawsuit as a Stunt on GMA Interview – ABC – 6-27-14
Ron Paul: Obama should be impeached, Boehner lawsuit just a “PR” stunt
Ann Coulter: “Obama Would Be Impeached If He Weren’t America’s First Black President”
Cavuto Blasts Boehner’s Obama Lawsuit: ‘Why Not Just Fix Things That Are Very Wrong Now?
The Benghazi Select Committee: Many Questions Remain Unanswered
Benghazi: The Difference It Makes Is Accountability!
Amb. Chris Stevens spoke to the House Intelligence Committee prior to his death in Benghazi
Murder Of Chris Stevens In Benghazi Attack Ordered By American Military Leadership, Possibly Obama
Napolitano Time To Impeach Obama
Rush Limbaugh: Obama Is Worse Than Richard Nixon And Needs To Be Impeached
Rush: Despite Obama’s ‘Lawlessness’ GOP Refuses To Impeach Because He’s Black Current News
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Fmr. Fed. Prosecutor: Need To Make Case For Obama Impeachment – 2/11/2014
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Michael Chertoff discusses the threat from Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) on FOX news
Embedded with Al-Qaeda in Syria: ISIS and al-Nusra
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Poll: Half of America Wants Obama Impeached
A new poll from WENZEL POLLS reveals what should have happened years ago: HALF of Americans want Barack Obama’s presidency to end through impeachment. After Benghazi, the IRS scandal, targeting journalists, and violating the Bill of Rights on a daily basis, the American people have had enough.
While impeachment won’t happen until the GOP takes the Senate in 2014, it’s something we absolutely should be focusing on. Remember, the only solution we should have to an out of control president is the constitutional option: impeachment and removal from office.
Still, we don’t yet know the half of it. Obama’s scandals we’ve seen so far have been during his presidency and midst many cover-ups — meaning the truth is likely exponentially worse than we even know.
Either way, the solution to an out of control and imperial presidency is for the Congress to do their duty, defend the American people and the rights protected by the constitution, and remove the president for his constitutional violations.
The faux stone columns from his Denver acceptance speech are crumbling, the fireworks have fizzled and the unadulterated adulation of Barack Obama is a sour feeling of disillusion, as a new poll reveals half of America wants him impeached, including a stunning one in four Democrats.
“It may be early in the process for members of Congress to start planning for impeachment of Barack Obama, but the American public is building a serious appetite for it,” said Fritz Wenzel, of Wenzel Strategies, which did the telephone poll Thursday. It has a margin of error of 4.36 percent.
“Half or nearly half of those surveyed said they believed Obama should be impeached for the trifecta of scandals now consuming Washington.”
It also seems as though the Tea Party truth effort to explain Benghazi is working, especially for independents. From WND once again:
“What is clear from the data is that Obama is at risk of losing his base,” Wenzel explained. “On each of these questions, about one in four Democrats said they agreed Obama should be impeached. What could be more alarming to the White House is that it appears that most of American is tuned in to these issues now, as 93 percent of registered voters said they get at least one news update on these issues every day.”
He continued, “Of the three issues now in the news, the one that has been there the longest, and the only one that has to do with the death of American citizens, is seen as the most important to Americans. While 49 percent said the Benghazi murders of U.S. diplomatic personnel is the most serious issue, 26 percent said IRS harassment was most serious, and 25 percent said the seizure of AP phone records was most serious. With news still breaking on all three fronts, it is impossible to know which of the three scandals will ultimately be the most damaging to the Obama administration. These findings clearly show Americans are concerned about what is going on in Washington.”
Need we say more? Barack Obama deserves to be impeached, the American people are slowly waking up, and the impeach Obama movement is under way. If you support the movement, then please take the first step by sharing this article on Facebook and Twitter.
Even Democrats join surge of dissatisfaction in unprecedented numbers
This is another in a series of “WND/WENZEL POLLS” conducted exclusively for WND by the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies.
The faux stone columns from his Denver acceptance speech are crumbling, the fireworks have fizzled and the unadulterated adulation of Barack Obama is a sour feeling of disillusion, as a new poll reveals half of America wants him impeached, including a stunning one in four Democrats.
“It may be early in the process for members of Congress to start planning for impeachment of Barack Obama, but the American public is building a serious appetite for it,” said Fritz Wenzel, of Wenzel Strategies, which did the telephone poll Thursday. It has a margin of error of 4.36 percent.
“Half or nearly half of those surveyed said they believed Obama should be impeached for the trifecta of scandals now consuming Washington.”
Actually, on the issue of the Benghazi scandal, where four Americans were killed when in what may have been a politically motivated series of moves, a surging danger to Americans at the foreign service facility there was ignored until al-Qaida-linked terrorists attacked, 50.1 percent of Americans said Obama should be impeached. That included 27.6 percent of the responding Democrats.
On the scandal of the Internal Revenue Service intentionally harassing conservative and Christian organizations? Forty-nine percent said they agree that impeachment is appropriate, including 24.4 percent of the Democrats.
And on the fishing trip the Obama administration took into AP reporters’ telephone records in search of something that may well have been done by his own administration, 48.6 percent impeachment is appropriate. That included 26.1 percent of the Democrats.
It was only two months ago that respondents to the same poll suggested, although in smaller numbers, that impeachment was appropriate for other Obama scandals. At that time 44 percent said he should be impeached for his campaign to give amnesty to illegal aliens inside the U.S., and 46 percent said he should be impeached for launching the war to remove Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
“What is clear from the data is that Obama is at risk of losing his base,” Wenzel explained. “On each of these questions, about one in four Democrats said they agreed Obama should be impeached. What could be more alarming to the White House is that it appears that most of American is tuned in to these issues now, as 93 percent of registered voters said they get at least one news update on these issues every day.”
He continued, “Of the three issues now in the news, the one that has been there the longest, and the only one that has to do with the death of American citizens, is seen as the most important to Americans. While 49 percent said the Benghazi murders of U.S. diplomatic personnel is the most serious issue, 26 percent said IRS harassment was most serious, and 25 percent said the seizure of AP phone records was most serious. With news still breaking on all three fronts, it is impossible to know which of the three scandals will ultimately be the most damaging to the Obama administration. These findings clearly show Americans are concerned about what is going on in Washington.”
It spells headwinds for Obama, too, as he lobbies American voters to grant him his wish of having a Democrat Congress during the last two years of his reign, Wenzel said.
“What could be most concerning to the White House is that the Democratic Party effort to retake the U.S. House of Representatives next year may be at risk because of these issues. Asked whether they would lean to vote for the Democrat or the Republican in their own congressional district based on what they know about these three situations, 46 percent said they would lean toward voting for the Republican, while 39 percent said they would lean toward voting for the Democrat. Another 16 percent said these issues make no difference in their congressional vote,” Wenzel said.
He said, “The appetite is growing for impeachment proceedings. It is too early to say it is time for those proceedings to start, but it’s now possible to see that day on the far horizon.”
Of those who did not vote in 2012, based on their knowledge of Obama’s administration now, 37 percent say they would have gone back to vote for Republican Mitt Romney, 27 percent for Obama, and others undecided.
“We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has, among conservatives, gone from sketchy to sinister, and, among liberals, from unsatisfying to dangerous. No one likes what they’re seeing. The Justice Department assault on the Associated Press and the ugly politicization of the Internal Revenue Service have left the administration’s credibility deeply, probably irretrievably damaged. They don’t look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the president enjoyed is gone,” she said.
“The president, as usual, acts as if all of this is totally unconnected to him. He’s shocked, it’s unacceptable, he’ll get to the bottom of it. He read about it in the papers, just like you. But he is not unconnected, he is not a bystander. This is his administration. Those are his executive agencies. He runs the IRS and the Justice Department,” she continued. “A president sets a mood, a tone. He establishes an atmosphere. If he is arrogant, arrogance spreads. If he is too partisan, too disrespecting of political adversaries, that spreads too. Presidents always undo themselves and then blame it on the third guy in the last row in the sleepy agency across town.”
That was confirmed by no less than Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, whose reporting on Watergate eventually snared the sitting president.
Woodward said recently, “If you read through all these emails, you see that everyone in the government is saying, ‘Oh, let’s not tell the public that terrorists were involved, people connected to al Qaeda. Let’s not tell the public that there were warnings.’ And I have to go back 40 years to Watergate when Nixon put out his edited transcripts to the conversations, and he personally went through them and said, ‘Oh, let’s not tell this, let’s not show this.’ I would not dismiss Benghazi. It’s a very serious issue.”
A Republican congressman recently brought up the subject.
“I would say yes. I’m not willing to take it [impeachment] off to take it off the table, but that’s certainly not what we’re striving for,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told CNN.
“We want truth, we want to bring the people who perpetrated the terrorism in Benghazi to be brought to justice, and we want to have the president do what he has said he would always do. And that is be open and transparent. Thus far, the White House has not done that.”
Earlier, Chaffetz was interviewed by the Salt Lake Tribune, and was asked if impeachment were within the realm of possibilities.
“It’s certainly a possibility,” he told the paper. “That’s not the goal but given the continued lies perpetrated by this administration, I don’t know where it’s going to go. … I’m not taking it off the table. I’m not out there touting that but I think this gets to the highest levels of our government and integrity and honesty are paramount.”
Chaffetz has been championing the call to probe the Sept. 11, 2012, onslaught at Benghazi that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Other Republicans have also voiced impeachment as a potential final outcome.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said last week impeachment was possible over the “most egregious cover-up in American history.
“People may be starting to use the I-word before too long,” Inhofe told radio host Rusty Humphries, according to the Hill.
“The I-word meaning impeachment?” Humphries asked.
“Yeah,” Inhofe responded.
Additionally, radio host Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and one-time presidential candidate, predicted Obama won’t serve out his full second term because of his complicity in a cover-up with Benghazi.
Other members of Congress who have uttered possible impeachment for a variety of reasons in recent years include Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas; Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas; Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla.; and Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.
Referring to Obama, Nugent says: “There’s no question that this guy’s violations qualify for impeachment. There’s no question.”
He blasted “the criminality of this government, the unprecedented abuse of power, corruption, fraud and deceit by the Chicago gangster-scammer-ACORN-in-chief.”
“It’s so diabolical,” he said.
Nugent made his comments in a recent interview with radio host Alex Jones.
See Denis Kucinich advocate for impeachment over Libya:
See Texas congressman lobby for impeachment over gun control:
See Andrew Napolitano talk about impeachment over the budget:
WND also compiled a special report on the various offenses Obama is blamed for committing and reported what experts on the Constitution believe should be happening.
Removing an official from office requires two steps: (1) a formal accusation, or impeachment, by the House of Representatives, and (2) a trial and conviction by the Senate. Impeachment requires a majority vote of the House; conviction is more difficult, requiring a two-thirds vote by the Senate. The vice president presides over the Senate proceedings in the case of all officials except the president, whose trial is presided over by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. This is because the vice president can hardly be considered a disinterested party—if his or her boss is forced out of office he or she is next in line for the top job!The right to impeach public officials is secured by the U.S. Constitution in Article I, Sections 2 and 3, which discuss the procedure, and in Article II, Section 4, which indicates the grounds for impeachment: “the President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
What Are “High Crimes and Misdemeanors?”
Bribery, perjury, and treason are among the least ambiguous reasons meriting impeachment, but the ocean of wrongdoing encompassed by the Constitution’s stipulation of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is vast. Abuse of power and serious misconduct in office fit this category, but one act that is definitely not grounds for impeachment is partisan discord. Several impeachment cases have confused political animosity with genuine crimes. Since Congress, the vortex of partisanship, is responsible for indicting, trying, and convicting public officials, it is necessary for the legislative branch to temporarily cast aside its factional nature and adopt a judicial role.
The Infamous Sixteen
Since 1797 the House of Representatives has impeached sixteen federal officials. These include two presidents, a cabinet member, a senator, a justice of the Supreme Court, and eleven federal judges. Of those, the Senate has convicted and removed seven, all of them judges. Not included in this list are the office holders who have resigned rather than face impeachment, most notably,President Richard M. Nixon.
The Small Fry
The first official impeached in this country was Senator William Blount of Tennessee for a plot to help the British seize Louisiana and Florida from Spain in 1797. The Senate dismissed the charges on Jan. 14, 1799, determining that it had no jurisdiction over its own members. The Senate and the House do, however, have the right to discipline their members, and the Senate expelled Blount the day after his impeachment.
Judge John Pickering of New Hampshire was the first impeached official actually convicted. He was found guilty of drunkenness and unlawful rulings, on March 12, 1804, and was believed to have been insane.
Associate Justice Samuel Chase, a strong Federalist, was impeached but acquitted of judicial bias against anti-Federalists. The acquittal on March 1, 1805, established that political differences were not grounds for impeachment.
Johnson, a Southern Democrat who became president after Lincoln’s assassination, supported a mild policy of Reconstruction after the Civil War. The Radical Republicans in Congress were furious at his leniency toward ex-Confederates and obvious lack of concern for ex-slaves, demonstrated by his veto of civil rights bills and opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment. To protect Radical Republicans in Johnson’s administration and diminish the strength of the president, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867, which prohibited the president from dismissing office holders without the Senate’s approval. A defiant Johnson tested the constitutionality of the Act by attempting to oust Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. His violation of the Act became the basis for impeachment in 1868. But the Senate was one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict, and Johnson was acquitted May 26, 1868.
Senator Charles Sumner, witness to the proceedings, defined them as “political in character.” Historians today generally agree with his assessment and consider the grounds for Johnson’s impeachment flimsy—the Tenure of Office Act was partially repealed in 1887,and then declared unconstitutional in 1926.
Bill Clinton was ultimately dragged down—though not defeated—by the character issues brought into question even before his election. An investigation into some suspect real estate dealings in which Clinton was involved prior to his presidency failed to turn up any implicating evidence. However, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr managed to unravel a tangled web of alleged sexual advances and affairs in Clinton’s past. The trail led to former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky. After months of denials, including in a videotaped legal testimony, Clinton admitted in August of 1998 that he had had a sexual relationship with the young woman during the time of her internship.
The infamous “Starr Report” outlining the findings of the Independent Counsel’s investigation was delivered to the House of Representatives on Sept. 9, 1998, and subsequently made available to the public. Many felt the report, filled with lurid details of Clinton’s sexual encounters with Lewinsky, to be a political attack against the President rather than a legal justification for his impeachment. Of the 11 possible grounds for impeachment cited by Starr, four were eventually approved by the House Judiciary Committee: grand jury perjury, civil suit perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power.
On December 19, following much debate over the constitutionality of the proceedings and whether or not Clinton could be punished by censure rather than impeachment, the House of Representatives held its historic vote. Clinton was impeached on two counts, grand jury perjury (228–206) and obstruction of justice (221–212), with the votes split along party lines. The Senate Republicans, however, were unable to gather enough support to achieve the two-thirds majority required for his conviction. On Feb. 12, 1999, the Senate acquitted President Clinton on both counts. The perjury charge failed by a vote of 55–45, with 10 Republicans voting against impeachment along with all 45 Democrats. The obstruction of justice vote was 50–50, with 5 Republicans breaking ranks to vote against impeachment.
The One That Got Away
Of thirty-five attempts at impeachment, only nine have come to trial. Because it cripples Congress with a lengthy trial, impeachment is infrequent. Many officials, seeing the writing on the wall, resign rather than face the ignominy of a public trial.
The most famous of these cases is of course that of President Richard Nixon, a Republican. After five men hired by Nixon’s reelection committee were caught burglarizing Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate Complex on June 17, 1972, President Nixon’s subsequent behavior—his cover-up of the burglary and refusal to turn over evidence—led the House Judiciary Committee to issue three articles of impeachment on July 30, 1974. The document also indicted Nixon for illegal wiretapping, misuse of the CIA, perjury, bribery, obstruction of justice, and other abuses of executive power. “In all of this,” the Articles of Impeachment summarize, “Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.” Impeachment appeared inevitable, and Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. The Articles of Impeachment, which can be viewed at http://watergate.info/, leave no doubt that these charges qualify as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” justifying impeachment.
The September 11, 2012 attacks on the special diplomatic facility and the CIA Annex in Benghazi were provoked by Obama’s efforts to restrict weapons flows to Syrian rebels for fear that success by muslim jihadists in Syria would undermine/discredit the central message of Obama’s reelection campaign–Osama is dead and al Qaeda is on the run. Let me connect the dots for you.
We will start with Obama’s January 2012 State of the Union address. That marked the first rollout of his catch phrase abouttrouncing the muslim jihadists.
President Obama last night in his State of the Union address signaled what he’ll run on this year, and he’s going to take that message on the road with stops in five battleground states over the next three days. Last night’s speech, focused on economic fairness with the president trying to sound like an optimistic populist. He delivered the speech with the confidence of a president who, in his most complete way yet, took credit for what he believes are his best accomplishments — killing Osama bin Laden, ending the war in Iraq, the auto industry’s turnaround, private-sector job growth (especially in manufacturing), cutting the deficit by more than $2 trillion, and new rules for Wall Street.
He also insisted that “Al Qaeda was on the run.”
However, Syria quickly was emerging a a problem that would pose a potentially significant risk to his campaign.
SAUDI Arabia and Qatar have agreed to fund the Syrian opposition, which is struggling to afford weapons in its fight against President Bashar al-Assad, a Syrian dissident has told The Times.
Opposition figures held a secret meeting with Saudi and Qatar officials after an Arab League meeting in Cairo last weekend. All the Gulf countries decided then to pull their observers from a monitoring mission that has been widely criticised for being toothless.
“The Saudis are offering their support in any way,” said the dissident, who asked not to be named.
Until now the Free Syrian Army has been funded largely by individual donors, many of them in the Syrian diaspora, enabling small arms to be bought on the black market in Lebanon.
“At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians [opposition] requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.”
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.” (January 29, 2012).
A Syria policy committee chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton involves the participation of Ambassador Robert Stephen Ford, CIA director David Petraeus, Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and Derek Chollet, Principal Deputy Director of Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff at the State Department.
Under Jeffrey Feltman’s supervision, the actual recruitment of terrorist mercenaries, however, is carried out in Qatar and Saudi Arabia in liaison with senior intelligence officials from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya and NATO. The former ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar, who remains a key member of Saudi intelligence, is said to be working with the Feltman group in Doha.
Prince Bandar, a Saudi, was the key interlocutor in this process. He has had longstanding, close ties with John Brennan, who was a senior deputy in the National Security Council during this period. The Saudis made it very clear to the United States that they were going to ramp up their support for rebels in Syria, working in concert with Turkey, and that they wanted the Untied States to support this effort. Specifically, they wanted US assistance in gathering weapons that could be moved from Libya to Syria via Turkey.
The CIA, working with the NSC and the State, put together the proposed plan during February. By early March 2012, the plan had been approved, signed off by President Obama and briefed to a select group in Congress (according to Sy Hersh, only 8 members of the House and Senate were briefed). CIA Director David Petraeus was sent to Turkey to brief the plan and kick things off:
Petraeus met Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday for closed-door talks focusing on the crisis across the border in Syria.
Petraeus, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, also discussed the latest developments in neighbouring Iran and efforts to counter Kurdish rebels attacking Turkey from safe havens in northern Iraq, said NTV television channel.
US embassy spokesman T.J. Grubisha said Petraeus met with Erdogan and Turkish National Intelligence Organisation chief Hakan Fidan and “discussed areas of mutual concern, including regional security issues and counter-terrorism cooperation.
“They foresee even closer and more fruitful cooperation on the region’s most pressing issues in the coming months.”
Erdogan has been fiercely critical of the Syrian regime’s year-long crackdown on the opposition and has called on President Bashar al-Assad to quit.
The talks were not part of Erdogan’s official itinerary. The premier’s office declined to comment on the report.
Agence France Presse — English
March 13, 2012 Tuesday 5:31 PM GMT
CIA chief meets Turkish PM on Syrian crisis
Shoulder fired surface to air missiles aka MANPADS previously collected as part of a State Department directed program were still in Libya. Starting in June of 2012, some of these missiles made their way to Syria rebels. Al Arabiya reported on 31 July 2012:
Rebels fighting to depose Syrian president Bashar al Assad have for the first time acquired a small supply of surface-to-air missiles, according to a news report that a Western official did not dispute, as the U.N. General Assembly said it will hold a meeting on the crisis in Syria this week.
NBC News reported Tuesday night that the rebel Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen of the weapons, which were delivered to them via neighboring Turkey, whose moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad’s departure with increasing vehemence. Indications are that the U.S. government, which has said it opposes arming the rebels, is not responsible for the delivery of the missiles. But some U.S. government sources have been saying for weeks that Arab governments seeking to oust Assad have been pressing for such missiles, also known as MANPADs, for man-portable air-defense systems, to be supplied to the rebels. In recent days, air operations against the rebels by Syrian government forces appear to have been stepped up, particularly around the contested city of Aleppo, making the rebels’ need for MANPADs more urgent.
To understand the curious reaction of the Obama Administration, you must first understand the discrepancy between what the intelligence community was reporting and the propaganda the media was spreading. If you only had access to media reports during the July-August 2012 period, you would think that the rebels were growing in strength and were only weeks from overthrowing Assad. Had this happened, it would have been vindication of Barack Obama’s support of the so-called Arab Spring.
But the intelligence community analysts, especially at DIA, were telling a very different story. Two trends were emerging. First, the rebels were faltering. Second, and more alarming, the muslim extremists–groups like al Nusra and Al Qaeda in Iraq and ISIS–were gaining strength. By the end of August there was genuine worry in the Obama National Security team that his claim, “Al Qaeda is on the run” could blow up in his face.
President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing US support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, US sources familiar with the matter said. Obama’s order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence “finding,” broadly permits the CIA and other US agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad. This and other developments signal a shift toward growing, albeit still circumscribed, support for Assad’s armed opponents – a shift that intensified following last month’s failure of the UN Security Council to agree on tougher sanctions against Damascus. The White House is for now apparently stopping short of giving the rebels lethal weapons, even as some US allies do just that. But US and European officials have said that there have been noticeable improvements in the coherence and effectiveness of Syrian rebel groups in the past few weeks. That represents a significant change in assessments of the rebels by Western officials, who previously characterized Assad’s opponents as a disorganized, almost chaotic, rabble. US media reported earlier in the year that the CIA was vetting arms supplied by Gulf Arab states and Turkey to ensure weapons did not fall into the hands of al-Qaeda. But Islamist militants have gained ground in Syria nonetheless, with several media reports in the past fortnight pointing to a growing al-Qaeda presence within the rebellion. Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined.
The political operatives at the White House were taking no chances. CIA Director Petraeus was dispatched back to Turkey to ensure that the program supporting the rebels was more tightly controlled and that the Islamic extremists were cut off. According to the Cihan News Agency, Petraeus arrived in Turkey on 2 September:
United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director David Petraeus arrived in Istanbul on Sunday. Petraeus’s private plane landed at the Istanbul International Airport with an army flight. He is expected to hold talks with Turkish officials over the Syria crisis and fight against terrorism. This is the second unannounced visit by the top US spy to Turkey in the last six months.
The message delivered was direct–Turkey was to ensure that no further weapons were provided to the Islamic rebels until after the election of Barack Obama.
We have further evidence of the coordination of this effort with the US Embassy in Libya. According to the Accountability Review Board, State Department Commmunicator, Sean Smith, was dispatched to Benghazi. It was anticipated that Ambassador Stevens would be coming to Benghazi within the next week. Smith’s job was to ensure he could communicate securely with Washington. Smith went to Benghazi while Stevens remained in Tripoli, awaiting an update/brief from CIA Director Petraeus on the results of the meeting with the Turks.
Unfortunately, someone on the Turkish side let the Islamic rebels know that they were being cutoff and blamed it on America. The info was communicated to them sometime after 4 September. That lit the fuze that led to the attacks on 11 September. Leaders of Ansar Al Sharia and Al Qaeda were going to show the United States that there was a cost for interfering in their holy war against Assad.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton failed to anticipate this result. When the attack commenced, both State and the White House were panicked. They immediately realized that this attack could blow a hole in the Obama narrative that Al Qaeda was on the run. There was no other alternative but to pretend that this was not a terrorist attack and that it had nothing to do with US clandestine support for rebels is Syria.
Syria’s FSA reportedly got surface-to-air missiles, U.N. to convene over crisis
Wednesday, 01 August 2012
By AL ARABIYA WITH AGENCIES
Rebels fighting to depose Syrian president Bashar al Assad have for the first time acquired a small supply of surface-to-air missiles, according to a news report that a Western official did not dispute, as the U.N. General Assembly said it will hold a meeting on the crisis in Syria this week.
NBC News reported Tuesday night that the rebel Free Syrian Army had obtained nearly two dozen of the weapons, which were delivered to them via neighboring Turkey, whose moderate Islamist government has been demanding Assad’s departure with increasing vehemence.
Indications are that the U.S. government, which has said it opposes arming the rebels, is not responsible for the delivery of the missiles.
But some U.S. government sources have been saying for weeks that Arab governments seeking to oust Assad have been pressing for such missiles, also known as MANPADs, for man-portable air-defense systems, to be supplied to the rebels.
In recent days, air operations against the rebels by Syrian government forces appear to have been stepped up, particularly around the contested city of Aleppo, making the rebels’ need for MANPADs more urgent.
Precisely what kind of MANPADs have been delivered to Syrian rebels is unclear and NBC News did not provide details. Such weapons range from the primitive to highly sophisticated.
And even if the rebels do have the weapons, it is unclear whether they have the training to operate them effectively against Assad’s air forces in the immediate future, according to Reuters.
Some conservative U.S. lawmakers, such as Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have criticized the administration of President Barack Obama for moving too slowly to assist the rebels and have suggested the U.S. government become directly involved in arming Assad’s opponents.
The White House, at least until now, has taken a considerably more cautious approach.
As of last month, U.S. officials warned that if any Middle Eastern nation was “even considering giving arms to the Syrian opposition,” it ought to “take a measured approach and think twice about providing arms that could have unintended consequences.”
Nonetheless, even at that time, U.S. and allied officials acknowledged that some Arab officials were discussing whether surface-to-air missiles might help Syrian rebels bring down Russian-made helicopters and other aircraft the Syrian army was using to move troops between trouble spots.
Following the fall of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, some intelligence experts estimated that as many as 10,000-15,000 MANPADs sets were looted from Libyan government stockpiles. The whereabouts of most of these are unknown.
Many U.S. officials have been wary of the notion of arming Syrian rebels with MANPADs, noting that they could be easily turned on targets other than the Syrian government, including civilian airliners.
After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the CIA provided sophisticated shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to Islamic militants seeking to oust Soviet troops.
The missiles proved deadly against Soviet helicopter gunships, but subsequently became a major headache for U.S. and western counter-terrorism agencies when anti-Soviet militants morphed into anti-Western militants.
Recent intelligence and news reporting has suggested a growing number of militants, including some affiliated with al-Qaeda, have traveled to Syria to try to join anti-Assad forces. U.S. officials have said, however, that they do not believe the militants yet play a dominant role in the Syrian opposition.
Meanwhile, the U.N. General Assembly said late Tuesday it will hold a meeting on the crisis in Syria this week and diplomats say it will likely vote on a Saudi-drafted resolution that condemns the Security Council for failing to take action against Damascus.
The 193-nation assembly’s press office said the meeting on Syria’s 16-month-old conflict would occur at 10:00 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Thursday.
U.N. diplomats told Reuters the assembly was expected to vote on a draft resolution that voices “grave concern at the escalation of violence in the Syrian Arab Republic, in particular the continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights.”
The latest draft, dated July 30, was penned by Saudi Arabia, which is openly supporting the rebel forces fighting to oust Assad.
The draft resolution would also have the assembly “expressing grave concern at the Syrian authorities’ threat to use chemical or biological weapons.” Damascus recently acknowledged having chemical arms, but said it would only use such weapons if it was attacked by foreign powers.
The assembly meeting comes after Russia and China on July 19 used their Security Council veto powers for the third time to strike down a Western-backed draft resolution that would have threatened Syrian authorities with sanctions if they failed to halt the violence.
The Saudi draft resolution would also have the assembly “deploring the Security Council failure to agree on measures to ensure the Syrian authorities’ compliance with its decisions” calling for an end to the violence. That condemnation, Western envoys say, is aimed at Moscow and Beijing.
Unlike Security Council resolutions, which can be legally binding, General Assembly resolutions are non-binding. But there are no vetoes in the assembly and only a simple majority is needed to pass them.
Western diplomats say they hope a strong majority vote in the assembly for a resolution condemning Syria and the Security Council would increase the pressure on Russia and China to stop shielding Assad from sanctions.
The Saudi resolution also reiterates the Arab League’s calls for Assad to step down and allow a political transition to a democratic government.
The draft text urges both the government forces and rebels to stop the violence, though it focuses its criticism on Assad’s government.
Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Jaafari has repeatedly accused Nassir Abdul Aziz al-Nasser of Qatar, president of the General Assembly, of using his position to push the Qatari national agenda.
The president ignored a law – which he signed last year – requiring him to notify Congress 30 days before releasing anyone from Guantanamo Bay
The Obama administration never told Capitol Hill until after Bergdahl was in American custody and the US Taliban prisoners were preparing to leave
A former federal prosecutor told MailOnline that while the 30-day-notice law is probably unconstitutional, putting enemy combatants back in a position to harm Americans is an impeachable offense
A White House insider said Obama administration officials didn’t anticipate how controversial Bergdahl’s rescue would be, and compared it to the 1981 release of 52 US hostages in Iran
Since Saturday several of Bergdahl’s former military comrades have said he was an Army deserter, and some have speculated that he also aimed to join with the Taliban in Afghanistan
An official Pentagon report concluded in 2010 that Bergdahl ‘walked away,’ so little effort was made to retrieve him, according to the AP
(Daily Mail) – Barack Obama broke a federal law that he signed just six months ago when he authorized the release of five high-ranking Taliban terror targets from the Guantanamo Bay detention center in exchange for the return of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, senior congressional Republicans claimed today.
And the president may also have written a new chapter in the case for his own impeachment, according to a former federal prosecutor who helped bring the 1993 World Trade Center bombers to justice.
‘The return of senior terrorists to the Taliban [is] … a “high crime and misdemeanor”,’ author Andrew C. McCarthy told MailOnline.
His book ‘Faithless Execution: Building the case for Obama’s impeachment,’ is set to be published Tuesday.
President Barack Obama made Jani and Bob Bergdahl happy by rescuing their son but was the operation part of a highly suspect maneuvering by the military and White House?
Derelection of duty? Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel (C) made press statements aboard a military aircraft but failed to notify Congress that five Guantanamo Bay detainees would be walking free
Obama ‘clearly violated laws which require him to notify Congress thirty days before any transfer of terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, and to explain how the threat posed by such terrorists has been substantially mitigated,’ House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Buck McKeon of California and Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma said Saturday.
‘Our joy at Sergeant Berghdal’s release is tempered by the fact that President Obama chose to ignore the law, not to mention sound policy, to achieve it.’
What makes the news more controversial still is that many do not see Bergdahl as a hero. Instead he has been branded a ‘deserter’ by many of his former comrades.
An official Pentagon report in 2010 concluded that he ‘walked away’ from his post, so the U.S. Army did not exert any extraordinary efforts to find him after an initial flurry of searches, according to an insider who spoke to the Associated Press.
And at least six soldiers lost their lives in circumstances related to the Idaho native’s disappearance from his post on June 30, 2009. Parents of one dead military men were told that their son perished in a mission aimed at taking down a Taliban target, not capturing a deserter.
With the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance no longer in any substantial doubt, the remaining outrage has focused on the Obama administration’s decision to trade five high-value Taliban terror detainees for him – several years after the Pentagon decided he wasn’t worth recovering.
Yet it appears the administration believed it would win a PR victory big enough to eclipse any legalistic hand-wringing on Capitol Hill, and whatever objections might surface among the military rank-and-file.
A White House official told MailOnline on Monday morning that Obama’s deputies were caught flatfooted by the intensity of public outrage in some quarters after Bergdahl’s rescue by Special Forces.
‘Everyone thought this would be a January 1981 moment,’ the insider said, referring to the negotiated release of 52 U.S. hostages in Iran after 444 days in captivity.
Backlash: Some of the men who served with Bowe Bergdahl are furious that he is being hailed as a hero and claim that he deserted his post
Bergdahl, the last American hostage from the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, was released this weekend in a prisoner exchange that saw five Guantanamo terrorism suspects freed
The United States won their freedom by releasing about $8 billion in Iranian assets that were frozen during the hostage standoff, and immunizing the Iranian government from any lawsuits that might be filed after the crisis was over.
‘Reagan negotiated with terrorists in the weeks before he took office,’ the official said. ‘I don’t remember anyone objecting at the time. They just wanted our people home.’
What the White House didn’t count on was a cadre of Bergdahl’s former platoon-mates coming forward and describing him as a dishonorable soldier beyond redemption.
The law Obama is accused of breaking, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2013, requires Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to ‘notify the appropriate committees of Congress … not later than 30 days before the transfer or release’ of detainees from Guantanamo.
Hagel is required to explain why prisoners are being let go, why it’s ‘in the national security interests of the United States,’ and what the administration has done ‘to mitigate the risks’ that the terror targets will ‘re-engage’ in war against the U.S.
Obama signed the lengthy law in December – it sets budgets and policy for the entire Defense Department – but issued a statement saying that he thought the notification requirement was unfair.
‘[I]n certain circumstances,,’ he wrote, it ‘would violate constitutional separation of powers principles. The executive branch must have the flexibility, among other things, to act swiftly in conducting negotiations with foreign countries regarding the circumstances of detainee transfers.’
Congress had moved significantly in the president’s direction, compared with the previous year’s NDAA. That law expressly forbade the administration from spending any money to release enemy combatants to foreign countries from Guantanamo.
Now Obama can make his move, provided he keeps Congress in the loop – which by all accounts he failed to do.
Administration officials were quick to assert that an emergency related to Bergdahl’s health made convening a war council impracticable.
‘We had reason to be concerned that this was an urgent and acute situation,’ National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Sunday on ABC.
‘Had we waited and lost him, I don’t think anybody would have forgiven the United States government.’
But Monday morning on CNN, outgoing White House Press Secretary Jay Carney couldn’t back up that assertion.
‘Now that you have him,’ host Chris Cuomo asked, ‘have they been able to diagnose anything that substantiated the concerns?’
‘Well, you know, I think at this point, Chris,’ Carney said, ‘we need to allow for Sergeant Bergdahl to recover privately. Out of respect for him and his family. we’re not going to get into details of that process. We’re just thrilled that he is back.’
It’s not flouting the defense law that upsets McCarthy, the prosecutor-turned-author.
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He thinks the NDAA itself is unconstitutional since it forbade Obama from moving chess pieces around the battlefield – instead of continuing to prohibit him from spending money to do it, which is Congress’ job.
But putting senior Taliban leaders back in a position to harm U.S. national interests, McCarthy argues, could be Obama’s undoing.
‘I don’t think it’s an impeachable offense for violating the NDAA,’ he told MailOnline.
‘Congress unconstitutionally restricted the president’s war power over the disposition of enemy combatants.’
‘They could have properly done it by using the power of the purse to deny funds for the transfers, but that’s not what they did [this time].’
But transferring the five high-value prisoners to Qatar, as Obama has authorized, ‘violates the law against material support to terrorism,’ McCarthy said.
‘And because high crimes and misdemeanors are not statutory offenses but political wrongs that endanger the United States, the return of senior terrorists to the Taliban while we still have soldiers in harm’s way is, in my view, a “high crime and misdemeanor”.
Article Two of the United States Constitution provides Congress with a way to remove officials, including the president, from the executive branch.
‘The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,’ it reads in part.
A ‘high’ crime is one that only a person in a position of power or authority can commit.
American history has seen only three serious attempts at impeachment: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Nixon resigned before he could be removed from the White House over the Watergate affair. The U.S. Senate failed to gather the two-thirds majority required to convict (and depose) either Clinton or Johnson.
McCarthy said he’s spoiled for choice with Obama’s impeachable offenses, and the Bergdahl affair doesn’t crack the top tier.
‘If it was a standalone, I would never impeach based solely on it, but I would add it to a larger indictment,’ he told MailOnline.
That indictment, laid out in his book, includes references to Obamacare’s ‘multiple unilaterally decreed amendments,’ security failures in Benghazi, ‘a Department of Justice that has covered up the Fast & Furious scandal’ and the ‘selective targeting’ of conservative groups by the IRS.
Bizarre: Bowe Bergdahl was ‘made to dance,’ his former ballet teacher told MailOnline of the wayward soldier
But he’s under no illusion that the release of five Taliban in exchange for a U.S. soldier who may have deserted his post and plotted to join with the enemy will suddenly bring out the peasants and their pitchforks.
And the lessons of Republicans’ failed effort to remove President Bill Clinton from power, he says, must not be forgotten.
‘The error to avoid is not the endeavor to remove a rogue president,’ he told MailOnline. ‘It is the endeavor to remove a rogue president without first having convinced the public that his removal is warranted – that the punishment fits the crime.’
He wrote Monday in the New York Post that ‘at this point, impeachment seems farfetched. … You can prove a thousand impeachable offenses, but absent the public will to remove the president from power, impeachment is a non-starter.’
‘The political case for ousting a president must be built. That is a good deal tougher than building the legal case.’
ncreasingly, across this city, the “I” word is being heard.
Impeachment is being brought up by Republicans outraged over Barack Obama’s usurpations of power and unilateral rewriting of laws. And Obama is taunting John Boehner and the GOP: “So sue me.”
Democrats are talking impeachment to rally a lethargic base to come out and vote this fall to prevent Republicans from taking control of the Senate, and with it the power to convict an impeached president.
Still, Republicans should drop the talk of impeachment.
For the GOP would gain nothing and risk everything if the people began to take seriously their threats to do to Barack Obama what Newt Gingrich’s House did to Bill Clinton.
The charges for which a president can be impeached and removed from office, are “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
With Bill Clinton, the impeachers had a solid case of perjury.
With Richard Nixon, they had a preponderance of evidence that, at least for a time, he had sought to obstruct justice in the investigation of the Watergate break-in.
Article II of the impeachment of Richard Nixon was for misuse of the IRS in what turned out to be futile and failed attempts to have the agency harass political enemies by having them audited.
As yet there is no evidence Obama knew of the IRS plot to delay and deny tax exemptions to Tea Party groups, which would be an abuse of power and a trampling upon the constitutional rights of Tea Partiers, who were denied the equal protection of the laws.
The GOP response to the lost emails of Lois Lerner and crashed computers that went missing should be a drumbeat of demands for the appointment of an independent counsel, not an impeachment committee in the House.
Obama claims he did not learn of the IRS abuse until years after it began, and weeks after his White House staff learned of it.
In the absence of those emails, the claim cannot be refuted.
In the Benghazi scandal, the president’s defense is the same.
He had no idea what was going on. And cluelessness appears here to be a credible defense. Two weeks after the Benghazi atrocity, Obama was at the U.N. still parroting the Susan Rice line about an anti-Muslim video having been the cause of it all.
Has the president unilaterally rewritten the Obamacare law, while ignoring the Congress that wrote it? Indeed, he has.
But would a Republican Party that failed and folded when it tried to use its legitimate power of the purse to defund Obamacare really stand firm in an Antietam battle to impeach a president of the United States?
Or is this just “beer talk”?
Impeachment is in the last analysis a political act.
The impeachment of Nixon was a coup d’etat by liberal enemies who, though repudiated and routed by the electorate in 1972, still retained the institutional power to break him and destroy his presidency.
And, undeniably, he gave them the tools.
In the case of Nixon, political enemies controlled both houses of the Congress.
Washington was a hostile city. Though he had swept 49 states, Nixon lost D.C. 3-to-1. The bureaucracy built up in the New Deal and Great Society was deep-dyed Democratic.
Most crucially, the Big Media whose liberal bias had been exposed by Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew were hell-bent on revenge.
All three power centers — the bureaucracy, Congress, the Big Media — worked in harness to bring Nixon down.
No such powerful and hostile coalition exits today with Obama.
In 2008, Obama carried D.C. 24-to-1 over John McCain. The While House Correspondents Association has at times behaved like an Obama super PAC. Liberal Democrats dominate the bureaucracy and control the Senate.
Any Republican attempt at impeachment would go up against a stacked deck. And the GOP would be throwing away a winning hand for a losing one.
For while the American people have shown no interest in impeaching Obama, they are coming to believe they elected an incompetent executive and compulsive speechmaker who does not know what the presidency requires and who equates talk with action.
With the economy shrinking 3 percent in the first quarter, with Obama sinking in public approval, and with the IRS, NSA and VA scandals bubbling, why would Republicans change the subject to impeachment?
The effect would be to enrage and energize the Democratic base, bring out the African-American vote in force and cause the major media to charge the GOP with a racist scheme to discredit and destroy our first black president.
Does the GOP really want a fight on that turf, when they currently hold the high ground? If you are winning an argument, why change the subject?
If the nation is led to believe Republicans seek to gain the Senate so they can remove Barack Obama from office after a GOP-led impeachment, then Republicans are not likely to win the Senate.
Maybe that is why the Democrats are wailing about impeachment.
“I disagree,” Boehner said when asked by reporters Wednesday morning. When a reporter pointed out that some House Republicans also are calling for impeachment, Boehner said again: “I disagree.”
Boehner’s comments came after Palin said Tuesday night on Fox News that the speaker’s planned lawsuit against Obama over his use of executive power is a weak maneuver. “You don’t bring a lawsuit to a gunfight,” she said. “There’s no place for lawyers on the front lines.”
Palin is hardly the first GOP politician to raise the issue of impeachment over the past couple years. As The Post’s Aaron Blake has noted, others include Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Reps. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.), Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.), Michael Burgess (R-Tex.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), former congressmen Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and Allen West (R-Fla.), and the South Dakota Republican Party. Not everyone explicitly called for Obama’s impeachment, but they have suggested that it should be considered.
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5 Questions: IRS chief meets Congress over computer crash
By RACHAEL BADE | 6/19/14 5:57 PM EDT
The disappearance of IRS employee emails has kicked the rumor mill over agency targeting of tea party groups into high gear.
Republicans accuse the IRS of disposing of evidence that could link the practice to the Obama Administration and ex-IRS official Lois Lerner. Some Democrats, meanwhile, want to ignore the matter, arguing that tech accidents happen and that the emails aren’t relevant anyway.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen will face his toughest round of questioning yet from irate lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday.
President Barack Obama brought in Koskinen to clean up the mess, after firing the acting IRS chief at the time, Steve Miller. Lerner’s admission that the agency had inappropriately used key words like “tea party” to scrutinize applicants for nonprofit status in May 2013, following by a critical inspector general report days later, set off furor.
Here are some to expect:
1. Why just now tell Congress?
Lawmakers want to know why the IRS just told Congress late last week that Lerner’s 2011 hard drive crash resulted in her archived emails being lost.
After all, it’s been more than a year since the IRS controversy came to light and lawmakers started demanding copies of IRS employee emails, with Lerner, who headed tax-exempt unit, being one of Republicans’ key targets from the start.
It is unclear when exactly Koskinen learned of the matter. Koskinen said Monday he first heard of it “late in the spring.” Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) has said that some IRS employees knew as early as February.
Republicans are furious that Koskinen didn’t mention the crash during spring hearings, when they peppered him with questions about why the agency had not turned over all of Lerner’s emails. Koskinen at a late March hearing, for example, retorted that the process is tricky and could take years because of taxpayer privacy laws. He said the agency would comply to turn over all Lerner’s emails but never mentioned that a chunk of them was lost.
Some Republicans are already accusing the IRS of deceit.
“Why did they deceitfully mislead this Congress in promising to provide all of Lerner’s email when they … had already been told about this supposed computer loss?” asked Ways and Means Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) .
But the IRS says it did not realize what happened to Lerner’s emails until it expanded its probe of her files from “relevant” correspondence to all correspondence, as demanded by Republicans.
Koskinen also told reporters on the Hill on Monday he chose now because the Senate Finance Committee was getting close to finalizing its IRS investigation: “We did not expect that. We were expecting that we would complete the Lois Lerner email production by the end of this month, complete with a full discussion of what we’ve been able to find and what we have not.”
2. When was her hard drive recycled, and did they try to get it back?
Some lawmakers and observers had hoped the crashed hard drives could be recovered by top tech experts. But POLITICO reported Wednesday night that the hard drive has been recycled — making retrieval likely impossible, sources say.
The questioning will now likely focus on what steps the IRS took, both when the computers crashed back in 2011, and what the IRS did this year after it discovered the emails were gone.
“There are many pressing questions that must be answered regarding how this development came about and what led to the destruction of the hard drive in the first place,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah.) said in a statement.
The IRS has said the best people in the criminal division — tech experts who can rebuild and search hidden criminal records on computers — weren’t able to recover Lerner’s documents. The IRS also released emails showing Lerner asking for computer help to recover the documents.
Some Republicans, like Oversight Rep. Trey Gowdy (S.C.), want to know if the metadata exist to get the senders, receivers and dates of emails, if not the content.
GOP panel staff members wonder if the IRS went back to the sixth-month files it kept at the time on all employee email to restore Lerner’s Outlook after it crashed. The IRS backed up emails for six months on a disk. That means, theoretically, the IRS should have had a tape at the time of the crash of emails Lerner had received during the first half of 2011, they say.
Oversight Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah) thinks there might be another way to recover the info: “Bring the nerds in! … I want a group of nerds who can tell you how this works, because in this day and age, emails don’t just disappear off the face of the planet. … You can’t just erase the Internet.”
3. Did the IRS break any laws?
Republicans say the IRS may have broke record keeping laws by not backing up employees’ emails.
The Federal Records Act requires that official documents be backed up in a method chosen by each agency and that National Archives be notified if documents are destroyed. But transparency advocates say the law isn’t clear on what exactly constitutes official documents.
Before May of 2013, when the scandal broke, the IRS only backed up emails on tapes for six months and then recycled the tapes, essentially throwing out the data. It relied on employees to print out copies of official correspondence and file them.
The Archives, which oversees the law, is now looking into the IRS’s loss of emails and “was concerned to learn that the IRS has lost email due to a hard-drive failure,” according to a spokesperson.
The IRS maintains it hasn’t broken any rules and that it would cost millions — money the cash-strapped agency says it doesn’t have — to back up all employee emails forever. They also say the recycling of failed hard drives is standard procedure.
4. Could someone have taken advantage of the system?
The GOP suspects more than just bad record keeping at the IRS — but also a cover-up. The IRS emphatically denies such accusations.
Republicans want to know if Lerner, former chief of staff to the commissioner Nikole Flax or others with lost emails could have destroyed them knowing they couldn’t be backed up.
They’ll point out that Lerner’s computer crashed just a few days after after Camp sent a letter to then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman inquiring about why the IRS was auditing political nonprofits.
Democrats will point out the White House this week said it did a search and found no emails between Lerner and White House staff from 2009 through 2011.
Koskinen will likely respond by citing emails showing that Lerner was worried about getting her hard drive back, saying she will “keep my fingers crossed” for recovery.
“There were some documents in the files that are irreplaceable. Whatever you can do to help, is greatly appreciated,” she wrote to someone looking at her computer in July 2010.
Koskinen said there’s “no indication” that anyone at the IRS was trying to hide emails.
5. What about the other lost emails?
Lerner’s email has been the focus, but Ways and Means Republicans say that as many as six additional people involved in the scandal also had email erased in hard drive crashes.
While some may take that as a confirmation that crashes happen at the IRS on a regular basis, some Republicans see it as a smokescreen.
“OK, a computer crashes, you ought to be able to get back finding that information. But to have six others? Something’s rotten in this,” said Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La).
Hatch — working with Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on what has been described as a bipartisan IRS probe — is not pleased that they learned of the lost emails only as they were putting the finishing touches on their final report, and that Koskinen earlier this week only mentioned Lerner’s lost email when he met them in person— not the other six.
Expect to hear more details about these other crashes at the hearings. How they crashed, when, and how were the people linked to the scandal?
Lawmakers may also ask the IRS how often computer crashes happen at the IRS. At least two IRS officials, one former and one current, have told POLITICO they lost information in a hard drive crash, too.
The IRS has seen its budget reduced, including for IT, for the past few years, even as Congress has heaped more responsibility on the agency. The IRS is expected to cite its very old technology, and lack of funds to update it, as part of the reason for the crashes.
Wyden told POLITICO he’s “definitely convinced that that issue needs a full hearing, and we’re going to do it.”
Darrell Issa calls White House attorney on IRS email loss
House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa is hauling in a former IRS counsel-turned-White House attorney to testify on the disappeared Lois Lerner emails.
The California Republican on Thursday evening requested Jennifer O’Connor of the White House Counsel’s office to testify on Tuesday morning about her knowledge of the crashed hard drive of ex-IRS tax exempt chief Lerner. The IRS says the crash erased two years’ worth of Lerner’s emails just when the IRS was beginning to pull conservative social welfare groups for additional scrutiny.
O’Connor was hired on at the IRS from May 2013 to November 2013 to serve as counselor to Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. One of her primary duties was to help the IRS respond to congressional inquiries after the tea party-targeting controversy came to light. And IRS chief counsel William Wilkins told the panel during its IRS probe that O’Connor was one of two people supervising the collection of “documents relating to the committee’s requests for material.”
Oversight Republicans had requested Lerner’s emails.
Issa suspects O’Connor, a former partner at D.C.’s WilmerHale, may have known about the missing Lerner emails.
“Given your prominent role in supervising the IRS’s document review and production processes, you likely knew or should have known that the IRS was missing a portion of e-mails sent or received by Ms. Lerner responsive to the Committee’s subpoena,” Issa said in a statement.
O’Connor specializes in responding to congressional investigations and was also detailed to help out the Health and Human Services Department following the botch Obamacare roll out in the early winter of last year. She headed to the White House earlier this year, according to the panel.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who will appear before House Ways and Means Friday morning in the first hearing on the email controversy, will also sit in Issa’s hot seat just a few hours before O’Connor on Monday night.
The hearings come just days after the IRS told lawmakers that all Lerner’s emails between January 2009 and April 2011 were lost in a computer crash in mid-2011. The defunct hard drive was also thrown out as per IRS procedure, sources say. Ways and Means said six additional people involved in the sandal have also had emails lost since the IRS at the time did not back up email.
It’s not just Lois Lerner’s e-mails. The Internal Revenue Service says it can’t produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the targeting of conservative groups, according to two Republicans investigating the scandal.
The IRS recently informed Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp and subcommittee chairman Charles Boustany that computer crashes resulted in additional lost e-mails, including from Nikole Flax, the chief of staff to former IRS commissioner Steven Miller, who was fired in the wake of the targeting scandal.
The revelation about Lerner’s e-mails rekindled the targeting scandal and today’s news has further inflamed Republicans. Camp and Boustany are now demanding a special prosecutor to investigate “every angle” of the events that led to Lois Lerner’s revelation in May 2013 that the agency had used inappropriate criteria to review the applications for tax exemption.
The lawmakers expressed particular outrage that the agency has known since February that it would not be able to produce the e-mails requested by the committee yet did not apprise the committee of that fact, and they charged in a statement that the IRS is attempting to “cover up the fact that it convenient lost key documents in the investigation.”
If Lerner is the central figure in the scandal — Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa said Monday evening he believes she was the senior-most official involved — Flax may be an important auxiliary figure. E-mails produced in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the group Judicial Watchshow Flax giving the green light to Lerner’s request to meet with Department of Justice officials to explore the possibility of criminally prosecuting nonprofit groups — at the suggestion of Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse — for engaging in political activity after declaring on their application for nonprofit status that they had no plans to do so.
E-mails uncovered by the committee last week showed that, in preparation for her meeting with the Department of Justice, Lerner and one of her advisers transmitted 1.1 million pages of data on nonprofit groups, including confidential taxpayer information, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, potentially in violation of federal law
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Complete integration
Email archiving, as offered by Mimecast, allows you to integrate the solution to Microsoft Outlook, enabling the user to access their personal archive with a familiar email interface. This makes it easy to recover deleted messages that are then restored to Outlook using the ‘drag and drop’ system, providing simple management of your mailbox. The service is already available on Android, Windows Phone, iPhone and Blackberry, ensuring that all major smartphones can take advantage of a cloud-based email platform.
And that concludes our introduction to email archiving. Make sure your business has a solution imminently to help increase your company’s productivity.
Email Archiving is the act of preserving and making searchable all email to/from an individual. Email archiving solutions capture email content either directly from the email application itself or during transport. The messages are typically then stored on magnetic disk storage and indexed to simplify future searches. In addition to simply accumulating email messages, these applications index and provide quick, searchable access to archived messages independent of the users of the system using a couple of different technical methods of implementation. The reasons a company may opt to implement an email archiving solution include protection of mission critical data, to meet retention and supervision requirements of applicable regulations, and for e-discovery purposes. It is predicted that the email archiving market will grow from nearly $2.1 billion in 2009 to over $5.1 billion in 2013.[1]
Definition
Email archiving is an automated process for preserving and protecting all inbound and outbound email messages (as well as attachments and metadata) so they can be accessed at a later date should the need arise. The benefits of email archiving include the recovery of lost or accidentally deleted emails, accelerated audit response, preservation of the intellectual property contained in business email and its attachments and “eDiscovery” in the case of litigation or internal investigations (what happened when, who said what).
Overview
Email Archiving is the process of capturing, preserving, and making easily searchable all email traffic to and from a given individual, organization, or service. Email archiving solutions capture email content either directly from the email server itself (journaling) or during message transit. The email archive can then be stored on magnetic tape, disk arrays, or now more often than not, in the cloud. Regardless of the location of the email archive, it gets indexed in order to speed future searches, and most archive vendors provide a search UI to simplify query construction.
In addition to email, attachments and associated metadata, some email archiving applications can also archive additional aspects of a mailbox including public folders, .pst files, calendars, contacts, notes, instant messages and context.
Objectives of Email Archiving
There are many motivations for enterprises or end-users to invest in an Email Archiving solution, including:
Data Preservation
Protection of Intellectual Property
Regulatory compliance
Litigation and Legal Discovery
Email Backup and Disaster Recovery
Messaging System & Storage Optimization
Monitoring of Internal & External Email Content
Records Management (Email Retention Policies)
Business & Email Continuity
Regulatory Compliance
As enterprises of all sizes grow more reliant on email, the business value of that content is also growing. To protect this increasingly valuable information (intellectual property), numerous standards and regulations have been enacted to require records protection and retention as well as timely response to legal (discovery) and information (FOIA) requests.[2] Modern email archiving solutions allow companies to meet regulatory requirements or corporate policies by securing and preserving data and providing flexible data management policies to enable authorized users to enact ‘legal holds’, set retention and purge policies, or conduct searches across multiple mailboxes to complete various inquiries.
Some of the primary compliance requirements driving the need for secure email archiving are (alphabetically):
Note, that many of the compliance regulations require the preservation of “electronic business communications” which consist of not only email, but may include instant messaging, file attachments, Bloomberg Messaging, Reuters Messaging, PIN-to-PIN and SMS text messages, VoIP and other electronic messaging communications used in business.
Litigation and Legal Discovery
For legal discovery, email archiving solutions will lower the overall risk of spoliation and greatly speed up electronic discovery. This is because messages are indexed, audit trails are provided, messages are deduplicated, and legal hold/preservation can be applied.[5]For litigation support, email can be retrieved quickly and a history of the email exists to prove its authenticity for chain of custody. For compliance support, email records are stored in the archive according to administrator defined retention policies. When retention periods expire, email is automatically deleted by the archiving application. In order to be compliant, an organization can intentionally destroy email messages, so long as (1) the destruction is done pursuant to a stated company policy and (2) the destruction stops immediately if an incident occurs which could give rise to a lawsuit. [6]
If an organization has multiple separate applications, for example for e-discovery, records information management, and email archiving, each application may have a separate database and it becomes difficult to de-duplicate messages and ensure that a single retention policy is being applied. From a legal point of view, this is important because once retention periods have expired the message should be purged from the archive.[7] Messages that are not purged are still discoverable, should litigation arise at a later date. As such, without a unified archive it is difficult to ensure one single retention policy. This problem is magnified for large organizations that manage tens of millions of emails per day.
Without email archiving, email likely exists on some combination of backup tapes and on end users’ local workstations. If a specific email needs to be found for an internal investigation or in response to litigation, it can take weeks to find and costs a great deal. With today’s legal discovery rules (see FRCP: http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/rules/EDiscovery_w_Notes.pdf) and compliance legislations, it has become necessary for IT departments to centrally manage and archive their organization’s email, so email can be searched and found in minutes; not days or weeks.
Email Backup and Disaster Recovery
Email is the lifeblood of many modern businesses, and enterprises today depend more on reliable email service. Virtually all enterprises implement a messaging infrastructure to connect workers and enable business processes. In the e-commerce arena, employees may require access to email to close sales and manage accounts. These employees, plus many others, may choose to keep their emails indefinitely, but some organizations may mandate that emails more than 90 days old be deleted. Setting these kinds of retention policies deserves careful consideration as a single email could help a company win a lawsuit or avoid litigation altogether. Email archiving can also be used for business continuity at the individual employee level. When one employee quits, his/her replacement can be given access to the departed employee’s archived messages in order to preserve correspondence records, and enable accelerated on-boarding.
As part of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan, an email archive can be instrumental in an organization’s effort to “get back to business”. An offsite, online archive means that secondary facilities can spin up messaging servers and quickly get access to the last mails sent/received as well as all historical messaging data. Offsite archives can take the form of disk farms (SANs) in distant DR facilities or email archives stored in public/private cloud environments. It should be noted that while email archiving products do capture and copy all messages, they are not mirrored copies of the messaging server itself, and therefore cannot help recreate user accounts/groups in the event of a disaster.
Messaging system & storage optimization
Every email message takes up space on an email system’s hard drive or some other permanent storage device (e.g. Network Attached Storage, Storage Area Network, etc.). As the number of these messages increase, simple operations such as retrieving, searching, indexing, backup, etc. take utilize more information system resources. At some point older data must be removed from the production email system so that they can maintain a level of performance for their primary use, exchange of email messages. Email archiving solutions improve email server performance and storage efficiency by removing email and attachments from the messaging server based on administrator defined policies. Archived email and attachments remain accessible to end users via the existing email client applications.
The sordid scandal about the abusive IRS targeting of tea party groups seeking tax exempt status has taken a sudden left turn into Michigan.The watchdog group, Judicial Watch, has obtained — through court order — a series of letters indicating the IRS was pressured by none other than Michigan’s senior U.S. Sen. Carl Levin to place greater scrutiny of groups seeking favorable tax status from the government.
Levin’s first letter — dated March 30, 2012, 7 months before that year’s presidential election — was directed to then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman and emphasized the “urgency” of tackling the issue of possible political activity by nonprofit applicants.Levin, who has announced his retirement at the end of his current term, didn’t explain why the issue was so urgent but he demanded information within three weeks on whether the IRS was “seeking any information about political activities, and how the IRS determines whether and when to send that questionnaire.”To make matters worse, Judicial Watch Senior Attorney Ramona Cotca said on my WJR radio show that Levin’s letters cited 10 organizations for special attention.Nine were on the conservative side of the aisle.Shulman responded with a 16-page response about IRS rules involving such questions, an exchange that came about a month after the agency’s efforts to target tea party groups was exposed by articles in newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and LA Times.Levin’s intent is rather clear and he was joined by fellow Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Dick Durbin in trying to pressure the tax agency.There’s no evidence that Republicans tried to similarly coerce the IRS to prevent the tax exempt status of liberal groups, including those run by Democratic sugar daddy George Soros, who spent a reported $6.1 million to back various political action groups involved in also pressing the government tax unit into action.The IRS not only targeted tea party groups, by identifying terms such as “Patriot” and “Constitution” into searches of entities that were singled out for special scrutiny, but also stonewalled a congressional investigation, tried to mislead Congress about the entire scandal, and delayed for years the legitimate tax exempt status of right-leaning nonprofits.Perhaps even worse, Judicial Watch says an estimated 10 percent of the individual donors to the tea party groups targeted saw their individual tax returns audited by the IRS.The average should be 1 percent, according to Cotca.The letters from influential senators like Levin, while certainly not responsible for the entire scandal, unquestionably brought added pressure to bear on IRS officials to use the government as a political arm of the Democratic Party, a blatant abuse of administrative power.While the tax exemption issue, and pressure from Sen. Levin, are reason enough for alarm about government overreach, even more frightening are the actions of Lois Lerner, former head of taxpayer groups for the IRS and subject of congressional contempt charges.Judicial Watch retrieved emails showing Lerner contacted the Justice Department about potential criminal prosecution of conservative groups, noting that putting one person from a conservative organization in jail would create an example and “shut the whole thing down.”That’s the Orwellian world Levin helped facilitate.It’s telling that Levin’s party has spent its time criticizing the congressional investigation rather than the actions of the tax agency itself.While there have been claims that the IRS also targeted liberal groups, Inspector General Russell George has said that those organizations were on watch lists that did not appear to be actively used, unlike the tea party harassment.The overarching concern for Americans from all of this is quite clear.If the IRS is used for political purposes against individual groups, couldn’t it be used in a similar way against any individual American, especially if a powerful politician urges the action?
(1) This transmits revised IRM 1.10.3, Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Standards for Using Email.
Background
This IRM provides guidelines for using email in the most effective and productive manner. It includes guidance on formatting messages in a way that will be easily accessible for all employees, including those using the Enterprise Remote Access System (ERAP). It also includes information on security guidelines, creation and use of distribution lists, and contacts for assistance with email issues.
Material Changes
(1) Text has been revised to clarify and update information including web site references.
Effect on Other Documents
IRM 1.10.3 dated July 8, 2011, is superseded.
Audience
All IRS employees
Effective Date
(08-30-2012)Terry Lemons
Director,
Office of Communications
1.10.3.1 (06-01-2007)
Introduction
Email is now commonly used in business as an official form of communication, often replacing memorandums, meetings or phone conversations. This technology option is often the most efficient way to handle business communications and responsibilities. But its benefits can lead to burdens if we do not use this powerful tool judiciously. This section defines the standards for email use in Internal Revenue Service communications.
1.10.3.2 (08-30-2012)
Security/Privacy
Email messages are official documents and should reflect this perspective. Email communications can be offered as evidence in court and can be legally binding. Before sending an email, you must consider how it reflects on the Service’s image and take into account privacy, records management, and security factors.
The privacy of email cannot be assured and is easily compromised. Messages can be forwarded to unintended recipients (sometimes outside the agency or even outside the government). The public we serve, or the Congress, who may have occasion to see an email message, do not differentiate between employees as individuals and our agency. We are the IRS.
More information on the Service’s email security policy is available at Cybersecurity’s policy, IRM 10.8.1.4.6.3, Electronic Mail (Email) Security and IRM 10.8.1.4.6.3.1 , Privately Owned Email Accounts.
The Internal Revenue Service processes Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) information. The definition of SBU information is any information that requires protection due to the risk and magnitude of loss or harm to the IRS or the privacy to which individuals are entitled under 5 United States Code (USC) Section 552a (the Privacy Act), which could result from inadvertent or deliberate disclosure, alteration, or destruction. See IRM 10.8.1, Information Technology (It) Security, Policy and Guidance, for guidance on Sensitive But Unclassified (SBU) information.
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is a specific type of sensitive information. PII includes the personal data of taxpayers, and also the personal information of employees, contractors, applicants and visitors to the IRS. Refer to the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) section of IRM 10.8.1 for additional PII guidance
You should never consider email secure. Do not include taxpayer, SBU, or PII information in email messages or attachments unless you use IRS approved encryption technology.
Use the Secure Enterprise Messaging System (SEMS, or ” Secure Messaging” ) for sending Microsoft Outlook messages that contain SBU data. Secure Messaging enables you to digitally encrypt email messages and attachments for transmission among IRS email users including Criminal Investigation,, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), and Chief Counsel employees. In order for you to send a secure message through Outlook, both you and the recipient must have Secure Messaging installed. This allows authorized employees to transmit SBU information to other authorized employees within the system once they have been enrolled and received training.
Secure Messaging enrollment is an automated process for all LAN accounts with an Exchange mailbox in IRS. You can find the instructions for configuring the Outlook client to use the certificates at the Secure Enterprise Messaging Systems (SEMS) web site: http://documentation.sems.enterprise.irs.gov/.
Alternatively, you may encrypt files to be e-mailed as attachments using the latest software provided by MITS. Instructions are provided at http://findit-mits.web.irs.gov/.
IRS employees may not send SBU data by electronic mail outside the IRS unless an IT approved exception is obtained. See the Electronic Mail and Secure Messaging section of IRM 11.3.1 for details.
Individuals seeking to commit fraud or intending harm to the IRS or its employees often engage in “social engineering,” wherein they use an alias and a seemingly innocuous cover story in order to gain the victim’s confidence and gather sensitive information. Such scammers may use email, and try to trick you into revealing your password, or personal information. If you receive a suspicious, bogus, or phishing email:
Do not open any attachments
Do not reply
“Forward” the email to the electronic mailbox, (phishing@irs.gov)
Delete the email after forwarding
For more information, see IRM 21.1.3 – Accounts Management and Compliance Services Operations.
1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011)
Emails as Possible Federal Records
All federal employees and federal contractors are required by law to preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency. Records must be properly stored and preserved, available for retrieval and subject to appropriate approved disposition schedules.
The Federal Records Act applies to email records just as it does to records you create using other media. Emails are records when they are:
Created or received in the transaction of agency business
Appropriate for preservation as evidence of the government’s function and activities, or
Valuable because of the information they contain
If you create or receive email messages during the course of your daily work, you are responsible for ensuring that you manage them properly. The Treasury Department’s current email policy requires emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them (including the essential transmission data) and filing them with related paper records. If transmission and receipt data are not printed by the email system, annotate the paper copy. More information on IRS records management requirements is available at http://erc.web.irs.gov/Displayanswers/Question.asp?FolderID=4&CategoryID=5 or see the Records Management Handbook, IRM 1.15.1 http://publish.no.irs.gov/IRM/P01/PDF/31421A03.PDF).
An email determined to be a federal record may eventually be considered as having historical value by the National Archivist prior to disposal. Therefore, ensure that all your communications are professional in tone.
Please note that maintaining a copy of an email or its attachments within the IRS email MS Outlook application does not meet the requirements of maintaining an official record. Therefore, print and file email and its attachments if they are either permanent records or if they relate to a specific case.
1.10.3.2.4 (08-30-2012)
Emails are Subject to FOIA
The public is aware of the role emails play in agency internal operations and emails are included in a growing number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Emails that are responsive to a FOIA request must be released unless the information contained in the email falls into one of nine very specific categories of exemptions. (See IRM 11.3.13 for more on FOIA processing). There is no category of exemption to protect the author or the Service from embarrassment.
Emails provided in response to a FOIA must include the addressee, date and time. The address list, date and time are considered part of the record for both FOIA and record management purposes.
Do not delete a message or attachment that is the subject of a congressional, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or discovery request or that is needed for litigation.
1.10.3.2.4.1 (08-30-2012)
Emails may be subject to electronic discovery
IRM 10.8.27, Information Technology (IT) Security, Internal Revenue Service Policy On Limited Personal Use Of Government Information Technology Resources, defines the minimum standard for acceptable personal use of Government IT resources by IRS employees. The first exhibit, includes a summary of prohibited activities that includes creating, copying, transmitting, or retransmitting chain letters or other unauthorized mass mailings regardless of their subject matter.
IRM 10.8.1.4.6.2.1(5), , Information Technology (IT) Security, Policy and Guidance states “Email spamming, sending or forwarding chain letters, other junk email, or inappropriate messages shall be prohibited. ” In addition, IRM 10.8.1.4.6.3 (7) states “Any use of IRS IT resources, including email, shall be made with the understanding that such use may not be secure, is not private, is not anonymous and may be subject to disclosure under FOIA.”
If you receive an inappropriate email, please notify your immediate supervisor or your local Data Security Area. Do not forward it to your co-workers, friends or family, etc. You should delete the inappropriate email after notifying the proper authorities.
1.10.3.3 (07-08-2011)
Message Format
Most IRS employees have access to email, but not everyone has the same email environment. Many employees work offsite and their email messages must go through the Enterprise Remote Access System (ERAP). A result is that these users often experience slower access and transmission. Email messages that IRS office workers download in fractions of seconds can often take longer for a field user. Additionally, graphics and stationery can’t be read by adaptive equipment and can freeze the user’s system.
Unnecessary messages or excess volume of data within a message require time for the recipient to review and digest. Keep the reader’s situation and need in mind at all times.
1.10.3.3.1 (07-08-2011)
Don’t Slow Down the System
To avoid slowing down transmission of information:
Use Arial or another simple font on a plain background.
Do not use animation, fancy background, “wallpapers,” borders, graphics and photographs as part of your “stationery” or message format. Exceptions will only be allowed for special IRS Commissioner initiatives.
Refrain from sending large attachments to work groups or audiences. Remember every email message and any attachments, embedded graphics and photographs require a copy for each Exchange server store where each recipient’s mailbox resides. Instead store the document on an IRS public web archive or SharePoint repository and insert a hyperlink into the message. Ensure the permissions allow access by all recipients prior to sending the message.
1.10.3.3.2 (06-01-2007)
Categorize Messages
A meaningful subject line helps recipients prioritize their email. Categorize all email by type. Include only related information in a message. If there is another topic you wish to address, send it in a separate message. This makes it easier for the recipient to manage and respond to messages on different topics.
Use the follow-up flag feature to identify items with required follow-up dates.
1.10.3.3.3 (06-01-2007)
Designate Priority
Most email will be normal priority. Designate an email as high priority only if the receiver will need to act on the message immediately. If your message is truly urgent, consider trying to reach the recipient by phone or in person.
“!” – High. Example – Computers will be down this weekend so overtime will not be scheduled and credit hours will not be approved. Example – We need volunteers for a task force in Washington that will convene in two weeks. Nominations are due this Friday.
“blank” – Normal (the default)
“down arrow” – Low. Example – The territory office of (another operating division) in another city has moved; its new address is…
1.10.3.3.4 (06-01-2007)
Designate Sensitivity
Most email is of normal sensitivity. Messages designated as ” private” or “confidential” should not be forwarded – but the system allows for this. Marking a message with one of these settings is advisory only. Recipients can take any actions on the message that they want to, such as forwarding the message to others.
To designate sensitivity, from the “View” menu, select “Options” then select the appropriate designation.
Private – Example: Communications with Labor Relations about an issue involving a particular employee.
Confidential – Example: A proposal you are sharing with someone for their input, but which has not been shared with those who will approve or implement the procedures.
Normal (default)
1.10.3.3.5 (07-08-2011)
Follow Guidelines of Email Common Sense and Etiquette
To improve the effectiveness of email, follow these rules of etiquette and common sense guidelines:
Consider whether email is the best method for your communication. Sometimes, two-way dialogue by phone, Office Communicator or in person may be more effective. At other times, email may be best if you need written documentation.
Choose your recipients carefully. When selecting from the global address list, watch for duplicate names. If you frequently sendmessages to the same individuals, put them in your Personal Address Book. If two or more individuals have the same names, check the employees’ properties in the Global Address List to ensure your intended recipient is the right person in the right location.
Do not use a distribution list (as a convenience to you) unless your message is appropriate for everyone on that list.
Use the subject line to categorize messages. Do not include any confidential or sensitive information in the subject line.
Forward messages only when necessary. Do not forward to people who have already received the message. Example: Do not resend Commissioner All-Employee messages.
Be concise.
Review your messages for accuracy in content, spelling, and punctuation. Hint: Set auto spell check to check all messages before sending and review any changes made .
If you say that a file is attached, attach it. Hint: attach the file before you compose the message.
Insert hypertext links to large documents stored on IRS document repositories.
Maintain your Inbox.
Respond promptly to messages.
Routinely purge your mailbox of old and unnecessary messages (but do not delete email that could be federal records).
Use the “To” address line for the primary recipient.
Use the carbon copy “cc” and blind carbon copy “bcc” features appropriately. Avoid copying people who do not need to see your message. In an internal office environment, it is rarely appropriate to use the “bcc” feature.
Use “Reply to all” only if all the original recipients needto know your response. Otherwise, reply only to the sender.
Never use “Reply to all” when you receive an email as a member of a large geographic or servicewide distribution list.
Use conversational grammar.
Do not use all caps or all lower case. Use punctuation.
Use the “out of office assistant” or ” auto forward” features when you will be out of the office for an extended time.
If you receive any messages with a known or suspected virus, delete them immediately and report the matter appropriately .
Avoid background, stationery or graphics.
To accommodate those with visual impairments, select font and background colors that provide sufficient contrast and avoid unusual color combinations. For example, use the default font color (usually black or blue) rather than selecting red or green, use the default background color rather than selecting a background color and do not use the text highlighting feature.
Help prevent unnecessary email by telling recipients when your message does not require a reply.
Manage your email more effectively by using Outlook features such as voting buttons and invitation options. It will be easier for recipients to respond and easier to manage and track the results.
1.10.3.3.6 (08-30-2012)
Limit Size of Attachments
Large attachments can degrade overall system efficiency, so you should limit the transmission of large files as email attachments whenever possible.
Consider alternatives for attachments larger than 10MB:
If …
Then …
“Attachment” has widespread impact and a shelf life
Have it posted to your organization’s intranet site for retrieval, and
Include the hyperlink in the email message.
-or-
Save it to your shared directory, and
Include file and path name in the email message.
“Attachment” does not have widespread impact and/or a shelf life
Zip large files for faster transmission.
Eliminate official IRS seal from memos.
If possible, remove graphics, borders, pictures and non-standard fonts.
“Attachment” is a large graphic presentation (i.e., PowerPoint, screen shots, scanned documents)
Send it only to people who need to use or see the actual file.
Convert the information to a text file for those who only need the information.
Zip the file.
Have it posted to your organization’s intranet site and email the hyperlink.
If you are responding with an attachment, use “Forward ” instead of “Reply” because attachments do not stay with replies.
If you want to save the email message but do not need the attachment, follow these instructions:
Open the message,
Right click the attachment icon, and
Select remove from the menu.
Close file. Select “yes” at the “Do you want to Save changes?” prompt.
This will also save disk space.
1.10.3.3.7 (06-01-2007)
Malicious Attachments
Ensure attachments are safe from viruses. Open attachments only if you trust the source and are expecting the attached file. Because of the impact the spreading of worms and viruses have on the IRS network, the Enterprise Messaging System is now configured to block all files with particular extension. If a file is sent via email with certain extensions (such as .exe, .vbs and .lnk), the message will be deleted without delivery.
A number of virus variants try to bypass the IRS virus scanning software by including their damaging payload within a .zip file. Be cautious with any message you receive containing an attachment with a .zip file extension, and only unzip the file only if you trust the source.
When you receive an email message with an attachment, save both the email and the attachment to a hard drive or network drive as soon as possible and remove the message and attachment from your mailbox. You free up space on your server by doing so.
1.10.3.4 (07-08-2011)
Using and Creating Distribution Lists
Distribution groups/lists are a convenience when messages need to be sent to a large defined group. They allow users to send email messages to each individual on the list without selecting individual names. However, you should use them judiciously.
1.10.3.4.1 (07-08-2011)
Personal Distribution Lists
Personal distribution lists are created by an individual user. Use your Outlook Help feature, keyword: personal distribution list, for instructions on creating and sharing personal lists.
1.10.3.4.2 (06-01-2007)
Global Distribution Lists
IT and the SEMS staff can create global distribution lists for groups of practically any size and for any situation. These distribution lists are available for use from the global address list on Outlook. The list owner determines who will be authorized to use the list.
There are several different types of global distribution lists.
Location specific
Considered local in scope, these lists contain members from a local site. For example, functional coordinators within a service center campus.
Special needs
Cross multiple organization boundaries and are often created for temporary groups, such as task forces.
Large lists
Contain more than 100 members and require specific set up and delivery restrictions. The AWSS all employee list (&AWSS Employees) is an example.
Note:
The use of large global lists should be confined to those who have a business need to communicate with the list. Examples include messages sent by IT to alert users of systems related issues or distribution of other approved servicewide communications tools such as IRS headlines or Leaders’ Alert.
Lists created from a databaseMembership for these lists is determined by specifying certain criteria within a database (such as TAPS or TIMIS) and populating the list with names meeting the criteria. Changes to membership cannot be made directly to the list, but must be made to information contained in the database. The SB/SE all-employee list (&SBSE All) is an example.
1.10.3.4.3 (04-01-2003)
Using Global Lists
Before using a global distribution list to send an email message that requires follow-up actions or commitment of resources by recipients outside of your division, always discuss the requirement with the applicable Division Commissioner’s office.
1.10.3.4.4 (07-08-2011)
Requesting a Global Distribution List
Contact OSGetServices (1-866-743-5748) or TDD/TTY: 1-866-435-7486 to request creation of a new global distribution list (DL). You will need to provide the following information :
Business need justification
Scope – to whom it applies
Anticipated “shelf life” of DL
Name and number of the individual charged with maintaining the DL
Proposed list of initial DL members
If the list is automated, the conditional criteria of the members
Note:
Distribution group/list names must be pre-approved by the designated business unit point of contact prior to opening the ITAMS ticket.
1.10.3.5 (04-01-2003)
Messages Intended for All Employees
The IRS has the capability to send email messages to all employees; however this method of communication should be used sparingly. If you have a message you believe should be communicated servicewide, contact your business unit’s communication office.
1.10.3.5.1 (06-01-2007)
IRS Headlines…and more
Generally, information requiring communication to all employees is distributed via the IRS Headlines … and more electronic newsletter. The C&L Internal Communications (IC) branch distributes IRS Headlines…and more every Monday using the all employee global distribution list. Articles for IRS Headlines …and more should contain time-sensitive information (something happening last week, this week or next week) relevant to a cross-section of IRS managers and employees.
If you think you have information appropriate for IRS Headlines… and more, you should take the following steps:
IC will provide editorial feedback on content, length, tone, and key messages.
IC will schedule article for publication in the IRS Headlines…and more electronic newsletter.
IC will suggest ways to incorporate message into other internal communications products, when appropriate.
1.10.3.5.2 (06-01-2007)
Special All-Employee Emails
On rare occasions, special circumstances may require the issuance of an all-employee email separate from IRS Headlines … and more. Any message submitted for distribution as an all-employee email will be subject to a stringent review process. The communications manager in your business unit is your initial point of contact when deciding whether to start the process of creating an all-employee email.
When submitting a message for distribution to all employees, you must provide the following information:
Significance to employees (Is there something they must know immediately to do their jobs correctly, to comply with the law, to prevent a systems failure, etc.?)
Reason for extreme time sensitivity (Why is this information so critical to employees that it cannot wait for inclusion in the next edition of Headlines?)
Necessity of email delivery instead of Headlines or other method (Why does this information have to be sent via a special email? Why wouldn’t IRweb (intranet) or Headlines be more appropriate ?)
Desired outcome (What immediate action do you want employees to take?)
Business objective
The C&L Internal Communication Branch will determine the best method of communicating the message based on the information submitted.
1.10.3.6 (07-08-2011)
Assistance with Email Issues
Use the following table to determine where to get assistance with email issues.
Topic
Resource
Security Concerns
Immediately contact the Computer Security Incident Response Center (CSIRC) at http://www.csirc.web.irs.gov/
Email: csirc@csirc.irs.gov
(866) 216-4809 (toll-free)
(202) 283-4809 (local)
(202) 283-0345 (FAX)
DO NOT open email; forward questionable email to *SPAM with “Possible SPAM” in subject line.
For additional information, take the Anti-SPAM Procedures link contained in the IT Navigation Guide.
Exhibit 1.10.3-1
Reducing the Size of Your Mailbox
The Secure Enterprise Messaging system (SEMS) establishes a standard size of 500 MB (500 megabytes) for individual mailboxes. The system mails you daily warning messages that the limit is being approached when your mailbox reaches a size of 475 MB. When it exceeds the 500 MB limit, you will receive the following warning each time you attempt to send a message:
“You have exceeded your storage limit on your mailbox ” .
Delete some mail from your mailbox or contact your system administrator to adjust your storage limit. (Consider whether any of the items you want to delete may be a federal record. IRM 1.10.3.3.2 above.)
It is not the practice of the SEMS staff to adjust any individual mailbox storage limits, but rather to provide guidance on reducing the size of the contents. The Outlook Help menu provides instructions for enabling and configuring both Auto-archiving and Rules to manage mail and mailbox folders to maintain proper storage limits.
Exhibit 1.10.3-2
Postscript/Signature
Your email signature section should include only the identifying information that would otherwise be included in any official IRS communication (i.e. business card, memorandum, letter, etc.):
Name
Title
Organization
Street/email address
Telephone/fax numbers
Refrain from including quotes or other personal messages as part of the signature section.
Follow these steps to create an automatic signature in Outlook:
Select “Options” from the “Tools” menu. Choose the “mail format” tab. Use the ” Signatures” section at the bottom to create your personal signature line.
Tonight the president engaged in demogoguery of the worst kind, when he claimed that last week’s Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, “open[ed] the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.”
The president’s statement is false.
The Court held that 2 U.S.C. Section 441a, which prohibits all corporate political spending, is unconstitutional. Foreign nationals, specifically defined to include foreign corporations, are prohibiting from making “a contribution or donation of money or ather thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State or local election” under 2 U.S.C. Section 441e, which was not at issue in the case. Foreign corporations are also prohibited, under 2 U.S.C. 441e, from making any contribution or donation to any committee of any political party, and they prohibited from making any “expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication.”
This is either blithering ignorance of the law or demagoguery of the worst kind.
– Bradley A. Smith is Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law at Capital University Law School
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. ___ (2010), (Docket No. 08-205), is a US constitutional law case. The United States Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting political independent expenditures by corporations, associations, or labor unions. This followed a line of decisions starting with Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S.1 (1976) interpreting freedom of speech to include spending money. The case has remained intensely controversial for increasing the influence in elections that money can have, in contrast to most other developed countries where limits are imposed on all election spending.
In the case, the conservative lobbying group Citizens United wanted to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton and to advertise the film during television broadcasts in apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act or “BCRA”).[2] Section 203 of BCRA defined an “electioneering communication” as a broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that mentioned a candidate within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary, and prohibited such expenditures by corporations and unions. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia held that §203 of BCRA applied and prohibited Citizens United from advertising the film Hillary: The Movie in broadcasts or paying to have it shown on television within 30 days of the 2008 Democratic primaries.[1][3] The Supreme Court reversed this decision, striking down those provisions of BCRA that prohibited corporations (including nonprofit corporations) and unions from making independent expenditures and “electioneering communications”.[2] The majority decision overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and partially overruled McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003).[4] The Court, however, upheld requirements for public disclosure by sponsors of advertisements (BCRA §201 and §311). The case did not involve the federal ban on direct contributions from corporations or unions to candidate campaigns or political parties, which remain illegal in races for federal office.[5]
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (known as BCRA or McCain–Feingold Act)—specifically §203, which modified the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, 2 U.S.C.§ 441b—prohibited corporations and unions from using their general treasury to fund “electioneering communications” (broadcast advertisements mentioning a candidate) within 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election. During the 2004 presidential campaign, a conservative nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization named Citizens United filed a complaint before the Federal Election Commission (FEC) charging that advertisements for Michael Moore’sfilm Fahrenheit 9/11, a documentary critical of the Bush administration’s response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, constituted political advertising and thus could not be aired within the 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election. The FEC dismissed the complaint after finding no evidence that broadcast advertisements for the movie and featuring a candidate within the proscribed time limits had actually been made.[6] The FEC later dismissed a second complaint which argued that the movie itself constituted illegal corporate spending advocating the election or defeat of a candidate, which was illegal under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974. In dismissing that complaint, the FEC found that:
The complainant alleged that the release and distribution of FAHRENHEIT 9/11 constituted an independent expenditure because the film expressly advocated the defeat of President Bush and that by being fully or partially responsible for the film’s release, Michael Moore and other entities associated with the film made excessive and/or prohibited contributions to unidentified candidates. The Commission found no reason to believe the respondents violated the Act because the film, associated trailers and website represented bona fide commercial activity, not “contributions” or “expenditures” as defined by the Federal Election Campaign Act.[7]
In the wake of these decisions, Citizens United sought to establish itself as a bona fide commercial film maker, producing several documentary films between 2005 and 2007. By early 2008, it sought to run television commercials to promote its latest political documentary Hillary: The Movie and to air the movie on DirecTV.[8] The movie was highly critical of then-Senator Hillary Clinton, with the District Court describing the movie as an elongated version of a negative 30-second television spot. In January 2008, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the television advertisements for Hillary: The Movie violated the BCRA restrictions of “electioneering communications” within 30 days of a primary. Though the political action committee claimed that the film was fact-based and nonpartisan, the lower court found that the film had no purpose other than to discredit Clinton’s candidacy for president.[9] The Supreme Court docketed the case on August 18, 2008,[10] and heard oral argument on March 24, 2009.[8][11][12]
Before the Supreme Court
During the original oral argument, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart (representing the FEC) argued that under Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the government would have the power to ban books if those books contained even one sentence expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate and were published or distributed by a corporation or union.[13] In response to this line of questioning, Stewart further argued that under Austin the government could ban the digital distribution of political books over the Amazon Kindle or prevent a union from hiring a writer to author a political book.[14]
According to a 2012 article in The New Yorker by Jeffrey Toobin, the Court expected after oral argument to rule on the narrow question that had originally been presented: could Citizens United show the film? At the subsequent conference among the justices after oral argument, the vote was 5–4 in favor of Citizens United being allowed to show the film. The justices voted the same as they had in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., a similar 2007 case, with Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito in the majority.[15]
Chief Justice John Roberts, per the privilege of that office when in the majority, was in charge of assigning the majority opinion, and chose to do it himself. His opinion restricted itself narrowly, holding that the BCRA allowed the showing of the film. A draft concurrence by Kennedy argued that the court could and should have gone much further. The other justices in the majority began agreeing with Kennedy, and convinced Roberts to reassign the writing and allow Kennedy’s concurrence to instead become the majority opinion.[15]
On the other side, John Paul Stevens, the most senior justice in the minority, assigned the dissent to David Souter, who announced his retirement from the Court while he was working on it. The final draft went beyond critiquing the majority. Toobin described it as “air[ing] some of the Court’s dirty laundry,” writing that Souter’s dissent accused Roberts of having manipulated Court procedures to reach his desired result—an expansive decision that, Souter claimed, changed decades of election law and ruled on issues neither party to the litigation had presented.[15]
According to Toobin, Roberts was concerned that Souter’s dissent, likely to be his last opinion for the Court, could “damage the Court’s credibility.” He agreed with the minority to withdraw the opinion and schedule the case for reargument. However, when he did, the “Questions Presented” to the parties were more expansive, touching on the issues Kennedy had identified. According to Toobin, the eventual result was therefore a foregone conclusion from that point on, because the same majority had supported it.[15] Toobin’s account has been criticized for drawing conclusions unsupported by the evidence in his article.[16]
On June 29, 2009, the last day of the term, the Court issued an order directing the parties to re-argue the case on September 9 after briefing whether it might be necessary to overrule Austin and/or McConnell v. Federal Election Commission to decide the case.[17] Justice Stevens noted in his dissent that in its prior motion for summary judgment Citizens United had abandoned its facial challenge of BCRA §203, with the parties agreeing to the dismissal of the claim.[18]
Justice Sotomayor sat on the bench for the first time during the second round of oral arguments. This was the first case argued by then-Solicitor General and future Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. Former Bush Solicitor General Ted Olson and First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams argued for Citizens United, and former Clinton Solicitor General Seth Waxman defended the statute on behalf of various supporters.[19] Legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky called it “one of the most important First Amendment cases in years”.[20]
Opinions of the Court
Overview
The Supreme Court held in Citizens United that it was unconstitutional to ban free speech through the limitation of independent communications by corporations, associations, and unions,[21] i.e. that corporations and labor unions may spend their own money to support or oppose political candidates through independent communications like television advertisements.[22] This ruling was frequently interpreted as permitting corporations and unions to donate to political campaigns,[23] or else removing limits on how much a donor can contribute to a campaign.[24] However, these claims are incorrect, as the ruling did not affect the 1907 Tillman Act‘s ban on corporate campaign donations (as the Court noted explicitly in its decision[25]), nor the prohibition on foreign corporate donations to American campaigns,[26] nor did it concern campaign contribution limits.[27] The Citizens United decision did not disturb prohibitions on corporate contributions to candidates, and it did not address whether the government could regulate contributions to groups that make independent expenditures.[22] The Citizens United ruling did however remove the previous ban on corporations and organizations using their treasury funds for direct advocacy. These groups were freed to expressly endorse or call to vote for or against specific candidates, actions that were previously prohibited.[28]
The majority opinion, written by Justice Kennedy, was relatively short, less than 30 pages; the dissenting opinions of Justices Kennedy and Scalia in Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission actually provide a more complete picture of the majority’s thinking, in many respects. Chief Justice Roberts wrote a concurring opinion to address concerns about stare decisis, andJustice Scalia wrote a concurring opinion about the history and meaning of the First Amendment. Justice Thomas wrote separately to announce his disagreement with the majority’s decision not to strike down the mandatory disclosure requirements in BCRA. Justice Stevens wrote a lengthy dissent to analyze the development of First Amendment doctrine and campaign finance restrictions and to rebut the arguments of the majority and concurring opinions.
Majority opinion
Justice Kennedy, the author of the Court’s opinion.
Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion[29] found that the BCRA §203 prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions violated the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. The majority wrote, “If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”[30]
Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the majority also noted that because the First Amendment (and the Court) does not distinguish between media and other corporations, these restrictions would allow Congress to suppress political speech in newspapers, books, television, and blogs.[2] The Court overruled Austin, which had held that a state law that prohibited corporations from using treasury money to support or oppose candidates in elections did not violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court also overruled that portion of McConnell that upheld BCRA’s restriction of corporate spending on “electioneering communications”. The Court’s ruling effectively freed corporations and unions to spend money both on “electioneering communications” and to directly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates (although not to contribute directly to candidates or political parties).
The majority argued that the First Amendment protects associations of individuals in addition to individual speakers, and further that the First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the identity of the speaker. Corporations, as associations of individuals, therefore have speech rights under the First Amendment. Because spending money is essential to disseminating speech, as established in Buckley v. Valeo, limiting a corporation’s ability to spend money is unconstitutional because it limits the ability of its members to associate effectively and to speak on political issues.
The majority overruled Austin because that decision allowed different restrictions on speech-related spending based on corporate identity. Additionally, the majority argued that Austin was based on an “equality” rationale – trying to equalize speech between different speakers – that the Court had previously rejected as illegitimate under the First Amendment in Buckley. The Michigan statute at issue inAustin had distinguished between corporate and union spending, prohibiting the former while allowing the latter. The Austin Court, over vigorous dissent by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Sandra Day O’Connor, had held that such distinctions were within the legislature’s prerogative. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, however, the majority argued that the First Amendment purposefully keeps the government from interfering in the “marketplace of ideas” and “rationing” speech, and it is not up to the legislatures or the courts to create a sense of “fairness” by restricting speech.[29]
The majority also criticized Austin’s reasoning that the “distorting effect” of large corporate expenditures constituted a risk of corruption or the appearance of corruption. Rather, the majority argued that the government had no place in determining whether large expenditures distorted an audience’s perceptions, and that the type of “corruption” that might justify government controls on spending for speech had to relate to some form of “quid pro quo” transaction: “There is no such thing as too much speech.”[29] The public has a right to have access to all information and to determine the reliability and importance of the information. Additionally, the majority did not believe that reliable evidence substantiated the risk of corruption or the appearance of corruption, and so this rationale did not satisfy strict scrutiny.
The majority opinion relied heavily on the reasoning and principles of the landmark campaign finance case of Buckley and First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, in which the Court struck down a broad prohibition against independent expenditures by corporations in ballot initiatives and referenda.[29] Specifically, the majority echoed Bellotti’s rejection of categories based on a corporation’s purpose. The majority argued that to grant First Amendment protections to media corporations but not others presented a host of problems, and so all corporations should be equally protected from expenditure restrictions.
The Court found that BCRA §§201 and 311, provisions requiring disclosure of the funder, were valid as applied to the movie advertisements and to the movie itself.[29]
Roberts wrote to further explain and defend the main opinion’s statement that “there is a difference between judicial restraint and judicial abdication.” Roberts explained why the Court must sometimes overrule prior decisions. Had prior Courts never gone against stare decisis, for example, “segregation would be legal, minimum wage laws would be unconstitutional, and the Government could wiretap ordinary criminal suspects without first obtaining warrants”. Roberts’ concurrence recited a plethora of case law in which the court had ruled against precedent. Ultimately, Roberts argued that “stare decisis…counsels deference to past mistakes, but provides no justification for making new ones”.[31]
Justice Scalia joined the opinion of the Court, but also wrote a concurring opinion which was joined by Justice Alito in full and by Justice Thomas in part. Scalia addressed Justice Stevens‘ dissent, specifically with regard to the original understanding of the First Amendment. Scalia stated that Stevens’ dissent was “in splendid isolation from the text of the First Amendment…It never shows why ‘the freedom of speech’ that was the right of Englishmen did not include the freedom to speak in association with other individuals, including association in the corporate form.” He further considered the dissent’s exploration of the Framers’ views about the “role of corporations in society” to be misleading, and even if valid, irrelevant to the text. Scalia principally argued that the First Amendment was written in “terms of speech, not speakers” and that “Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker.”[32] Scalia argued that the Free Press clause was originally intended to protect the distribution of written materials and did not only apply to the media specifically. This understanding supported the majority’s contention that the Constitution does not allow the Court to separate corporations into media and non-media categories.[29]
Justice Thomas wrote a separate opinion concurring in all but the upholding of the disclosure provisions. In order to protect the anonymity of contributors to organizations exercising free speech, Thomas would have struck down the reporting requirements of BCRA §201 and §311 as well, rather than allowing them to be challenged only on a case-specific basis. Thomas’s primary argument was that anonymous free speech is protected and that making contributor lists public makes the contributors vulnerable to retaliation, citing instances of retaliation against contributors to both sides of a then recent California voter initiative. Thomas also expressed concern that such retaliation could extend to retaliation by elected officials. Thomas did not consider “as-applied challenges” to be sufficient to protect against the threat of retaliation.[33]
Dissent
Justice Stevens, the author of the dissenting opinion.
A dissenting opinion by Justice Stevens[34] was joined by Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor. To emphasize his unhappiness with the majority, Stevens read part of his 90 page dissent from the bench.[35] Stevens concurred in the Court’s decision to sustain BCRA’s disclosure provisions, but dissented from the principal holding of the majority opinion. The dissent argued that the Court’s ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.” He wrote: “A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”
Justice Stevens also argued that the Court addressed a question not raised by the litigants when it found BCRA §203 to be facially unconstitutional, and that the majority “changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law”.[29] He argued that the majority had expanded the scope beyond the questions presented by the appellant and that therefore a sufficient record for judging the case did not exist. Stevens argued that at a minimum the Court should have remanded the case for a fact-finding hearing, and that the majority did not consider other compilations of data, such as the Congressional record for justifying BCRA §203.
Stevens referenced a number of major First Amendment cases to argue that the Court had long recognized that to deny Congress the power to safeguard against “the improper use of money to influence the result [of an election] is to deny to the nation in a vital particular the power of self protection”.[36] After recognizing that in Buckley v. Valeo the Court had struck down portions of a broad prohibition of independent expenditures from any sources, Stevens argued that nevertheless Buckley recognized the legitimacy of “prophylactic” measures for limiting campaign spending and found the prevention of “corruption” to be a reasonable goal for legislation. Consequently, Stevens argued that Buckley left the door open for carefully tailored future regulation.[29] Although the majority echoed many of the arguments in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, Stevens argued that the majority opinion contradicted the reasoning of other campaign finance cases – in particular, Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission – and found it telling that the majority, when citing such cases, referenced mainly dissenting opinions.
Stevens’ lengthy dissent specifically sought to address a number of the majority’s central arguments:
First, Stevens argued that the majority failed to recognize the possibility for corruption outside of strict quid pro quo exchanges. Stevens referenced facts from a previous BCRA challenge to argue that, even if the exchange of votes for expenditures could not be shown, contributors gain favorable political access from such expenditures.[29] The majority considered access to be insufficient justification for limiting speech rights.
Stevens, however, argued that in the past, even when striking down a ban on corporate independent expenditures, the Court “never suggested that such quid pro quo debts must take the form of outright vote buying or bribes” (Bellotti). Buckley, he claimed, also acknowledged that large independent expenditures present the same dangers as quid pro quo arrangements, although Buckley struck down limits on such independent expenditures. Using the record from a previous BCRA §203 challenge, he argued that independent expenditures were sometimes a factor in gaining political access and concluded that large independent expenditures generate more influence than direct campaign contributions.[29] Furthermore, Stevens argued that corporations could threaten Representatives and Senators with negative advertising to gain unprecedented leverage. Stevens supported his argument by citing Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.,[37] where the Court held that $3 million in independent expenditures in a judicial race raised sufficient questions about a judge’s impartiality to require the judge to recuse himself in a future case involving the spender. Stevens argued that it was contradictory for the majority to ignore the same risks in legislative and executive elections, and argued that the majority opinion would exacerbate the problem presented in Caperton because of the number of states with judicial elections and increased spending in judicial races.
Second, Stevens argued that the majority did not place enough emphasis on the need to prevent the “appearance of corruption” in elections. Earlier cases, including Buckley and Bellotti, recognized the importance of public confidence in democracy. Stevens cited recent data indicating that 80% of the public view corporate independent expenditures as a method used to gain unfair legislative access.[29] Stevens predicted that if the public believes that corporations dominate elections, disaffected voters will stop participating.
Third, Stevens argued that the majority’s decision failed to recognize the dangers of the corporate form. Austin held that the prevention of corruption, including the distorting influence of a dominant funding source, was a sufficient reason for regulating corporate independent expenditures. In defending Austin, Stevens argued that the unique qualities of corporations and other artificial legal entities made them dangerous to democratic elections. These legal entities, he argued, have perpetual life, the ability to amass large sums of money, limited liability, no ability to vote, no morality, no purpose outside of profit-making, and no loyalty. Therefore, he argued, the courts should permit legislatures to regulate corporate participation in the political process.
Legal entities, Stevens wrote, are not “We the People” for whom our Constitution was established.[29] Therefore, he argued, they should not be given speech protections under the First Amendment. The First Amendment, he argued, protects individual self-expression, self-realization and the communication of ideas. Corporate spending is the “furthest from the core of political expression” protected by the Constitution, he argued, citing Federal Election Commission v. Beaumont,[38] and corporate spending on politics should be viewed as a business transaction designed by the officers or the boards of directors for no purpose other than profit-making. Stevens called corporate spending “more transactional than ideological”. Stevens also pointed out that any member of a corporation may spend personal money on promoting a campaign because BCRA only prohibited the use of general treasury money.
Fourth, Stevens attacked the majority’s central argument: that the prohibition of spending guards free speech and allows the general public to receive all available information. Relying on Austin, Stevens argued that corporations “unfairly influence” the electoral process with vast sums of money that few individuals can match, which distorts the public debate. Because a typical voter can only absorb so much information during a relevant election period, Stevens described “unfair corporate influence” as the potential to outspend others, to push others out of prime broadcasting spots and to dominate the “marketplace of ideas”.[29] This process, he argued, puts disproportionate focus on this speech and gives the impression of widespread support regardless of actual support. Thus, this process marginalizes the speech of other individuals and groups.
Stevens referred to the majority’s argument that “there is no such thing as too much speech” as “facile” and a “straw man” argument. He called it an incorrect statement of First Amendment law because the Court recognizes numerous exceptions to free speech, such as fighting words, obscenity restrictions, time, place and manner restrictions, etc. Throughout the dissent, Stevens argued that the majority’s “slogan” ignored the possibility that too much speech from one source could “drown out” other points of view.
Fifth, Stevens criticized the majority’s fear that the government could use BCRA §203 to censor the media. The focus placed on this hypothetical fear made no sense to Stevens because it did not relate to the facts of this case—if the government actually attempted to apply BCRA §203 to the media (and assuming that Citizens United could not constitute “media”), the Court could deal with the problem at that time. Stevens described the majority’s supposed protection of the media as nothing more than posturing. According to Stevens, it was the majority’s new rule, announced in this case, that prohibited a law from distinguishing between “speakers” or funding sources. This new rule would be the only reason why media corporations could not be exempted from BCRA §203. In this, Stevens and the majority conceptualize the First Amendment’s protection of “the press” quite differently. Stevens argues that the “Press” is an entity, which can be distinguished from other persons and entities which are not “press”. The majority opinion viewed “freedom of the press” as an activity, applicable to all citizens or groups of citizens seeking to publish views.
Sixth, Stevens claimed that the majority failed to give proper deference to the legislature. Stevens predicted that this ruling would restrict the ability of the states to experiment with different methods for decreasing corruption in elections. According to Stevens, this ruling virtually ended those efforts, “declaring by fiat” that people will not “lose faith in our democracy”.[29] Because of the complex interrelated interests at stake, Stevens found this an undesirable area of law for black-and-white rules. Stevens argued that the majority’s view of a self-serving legislature, passing campaign-spending laws to gain an advantage in retaining a seat, coupled with “strict scrutiny” of laws, would make it difficult for any campaign finance regulation to be upheld in future cases.
Seventh, Stevens argued that the majority opinion ignored the rights of shareholders. A series of cases protects individuals from legally compelled payment of union dues to support political speech.[39] Because shareholders invest money in corporations, Stevens argued that the law should likewise help to protect shareholders from funding speech that they oppose. The majority, however, argued that ownership of corporate stock was voluntary, and that unhappy shareholders could simply sell off their shares if they did not agree with the corporation’s speech. Stevens also argued that Political Action Committees (PACs), which allow individual members of a corporation to invest money in a separate fund, are an adequate substitute for general corporate speech and better protect shareholder rights. The majority, by contrast, had argued that most corporations are too small and lack the resources and raw number of shareholders and management staff necessary to cover the compliance, accounting, and administrative costs of maintaining a PAC. In this dispute, the opposing views essentially discussed differing types of entities: Stevens focused his argument on large, publicly held corporations, while the justices in the majority, and particularly Justice Scalia’s concurring opinion, placed an emphasis on small, closely held corporations and non-profits.
Stevens called the majority’s faith in “corporate democracy” an unrealistic method for a shareholder to oppose political funding. A derivative suit is slow, inefficient, risky and potentially expensive. Likewise, shareholder meetings only happen a few times a year, not prior to every decision or transaction. Rather, the officers and boards control the day-to-day spending, including political spending. According to Stevens, the shareholders have few options, giving them “virtually nonexistent” recourse for opposing a corporation’s political spending.[29] Furthermore, most shareholders use investment intermediaries, such as mutual funds or pensions, and by the time a shareholder may find out about a corporation’s political spending and try to object, the damage is done and the shareholder has funded disfavored speech.
Stevens concluded his dissent:
At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.
Correspondingly, Stevens and the other dissenting justices would have upheld the constitutionality of BCRA §203 and its restriction against advertising and broadcasting “Hillary: The Movie” within 30 days of the primary election on the grounds that the movie was produced and distributed by a corporate entity.
Subsequent developments
There was a wide range of reactions to the case from politicians, academics, attorneys, advocacy groups and journalists.
Support
Politicians
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who attended the announcement of the ruling, said the court “struck a blow for the First Amendment”.[40]
Republican campaign consultant Ed Rollins opined that the decision adds transparency to the election process and will make it more competitive.[41]
Advocacy groups
Citizens United, the group filing the lawsuit said, “Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing Citizens United to air its documentary films and advertisements is a tremendous victory, not only for Citizens United but for every American who desires to participate in the political process.”[42] During litigation, Citizens United had support from the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Rifle Association.[40]
Campaign finance attorney Cleta Mitchell, who had filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of two advocacy organizations opposing the ban, wrote that “The Supreme Court has correctly eliminated a constitutionally flawed system that allowed media corporations (e.g., The Washington Post Co.) to freely disseminate their opinions about candidates using corporate treasury funds, while denying that constitutional privilege to Susie’s Flower Shop Inc. … The real victims of the corporate expenditure ban have been nonprofit advocacy organizations across the political spectrum.”[43]
Heritage Foundation fellow Hans A. von Spakovsky, a former Republican member of the Federal Election Commission, said “The Supreme Court has restored a part of the First Amendment that had been unfortunately stolen by Congress and a previously wrongly-decided ruling of the court.”[44]
Libertarian Cato Institute analysts John Samples and Ilya Shapiro wrote that restrictions on advertising were based on the idea “that corporations had so much money that their spending would create vast inequalities in speech that would undermine democracy”. However, “to make campaign spending equal or nearly so, the government would have to force some people or groups to spend less than they wished. And equality of speech is inherently contrary to protecting speech from government restraint, which is ultimately the heart of American conceptions of free speech.”[45]
The American Civil Liberties Union filed an amicus brief that supported the decision,[46] saying that “section 203 should now be struck down as facially unconstitutional”, though membership was split over the implications of the ruling and its board sent the issue to its special committee on campaign finance for further consideration.[47] On March 27, 2012, the ACLU reaffirmed its stance in support of the Supreme Court’sCitizens United ruling.[48]
Academics and attorneys
Bradley A. Smith, professor of law at Capital University Law School, former chairman of the FEC, founder of the Center for Competitive Politics and a leading proponent of deregulation of campaign finance, wrote that the major opponents of political free speech are “incumbent politicians” who “are keen to maintain a chokehold on such speech”. Empowering “small and midsize corporations—and every incorporated mom-and-pop falafel joint, local firefighters’ union, and environmental group—to make its voice heard” frightens them.[49] In response to statements by President Obama and others that the ruling would allow foreign entities to gain political influence through U.S. subsidiaries, Smith pointed out that the decision did not overturn the ban on political donations by foreign corporations and the prohibition on any involvement by foreign nationals in decisions regarding political spending by U.S. subsidiaries, which are covered by other parts of the law.[50]
Campaign finance expert Jan Baran, a member of the Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform, agreed with the decision, writing that “The history of campaign finance reform is the history of incumbent politicians seeking to muzzle speakers, any speakers, particularly those who might publicly criticize them and their legislation. It is a lot easier to legislate against unions, gun owners, ‘fat cat’ bankers, health insurance companies and any other industry or ‘special interest’ group when they can’t talk back.” Baran further noted that in general conservatives and libertarians praised the ruling’s preservation of the First Amendment and freedom of speech, but that liberals and campaign finance reformers criticized it as greatly expanding the role of corporate money in politics.[51]
Attorney Kenneth Gross, former associate general counsel of the FEC, wrote that corporations relied more on the development of long-term relationships, political action committees and personal contributions, which were not affected by the decision. He held that while trade associations might seek to raise funds and support candidates, corporations which have “signed on to transparency agreements regarding political spending” may not be eager to give.[43]
The New York Times asked seven academics to opine on how corporate money would reshape politics as a result of the court’s decision.[52] Three of these wrote that the effects would be minimal or positive: Christopher Cotton, a University of Miami School of Business assistant professor of economics, wrote that “There may be very little difference between seeing eight ads or seeing nine ads (compared to seeing one ad or two). And, voters recognize that richer candidates are not necessarily the better candidates, and in some cases, the benefit of running more ads is offset by the negative signal that spending a lot of money creates.[52]Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at UCLA, stated that the “most influential actors in most political campaigns” are media corporations which “overtly editorialize for and against candidates, and also influence elections by choosing what to cover and how to cover it”. Holding that corporations like Exxon would fear alienating voters by supporting candidates, the decision really meant that voters would hear “more messages from more sources”.[52] Joel Gora, a professor at Brooklyn Law School who had previously argued the case of Buckley v. Valeo on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that the decision represented “a great day for the First Amendment” writing that the Court had “dismantled the First Amendment ‘caste system’ in election speech”.[52]
Journalists
The Editorial Board of the San Antonio Express-News criticized McCain–Feingold’s exception for media corporations from the ban on corporate electioneering, writing that it “makes no sense” that the paper could make endorsements up until the day of the election but advocacy groups could not. “While the influence of money on the political process is troubling and sometimes corrupting, abridging political speech is the wrong way to counterbalance that influence.”[53]
Anthony Dick in National Review countered a number of arguments against the decision, asking rhetorically, “is there something uniquely harmful and/or unworthy of protection about political messages that come from corporations and unions, as opposed to, say, rich individuals, persuasive writers, or charismatic demagogues?” He noted that “a recent Gallup poll shows that a majority of the public actually agrees with the Court that corporations and unions should be treated just like individuals in terms of their political-expenditure rights”.[54] A Gallup poll taken in October 2009 and released soon after the decision showed 57 percent of those surveyed agreed that contributions to political candidates are a form of free speech and 55 percent agreed that the same rules should apply to individuals, corporations and unions. Sixty-four percent of Democrats and Republicans believed campaign donations are a form of free speech.[55]
Chicago Tribune editorial board member Steve Chapman wrote “If corporate advocacy may be forbidden as it was under the law in question, it’s not just Exxon Mobil and Citigroup that are rendered mute. Nonprofit corporations set up merely to advance goals shared by citizens, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association, also have to put a sock in it. So much for the First Amendment goal of fostering debate about public policy.”[56]
President Barack Obama stated that the decision “gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington—while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates”.[57] Obama later elaborated in his weekly radio address saying, “this ruling strikes at our democracy itself” and “I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest”.[58] On January 27, 2010, Obama further condemned the decision during the 2010 State of the Union Address, stating that, “Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law[59] to open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.”
Democratic senator Russ Feingold, a lead sponsor of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, stated “This decision was a terrible mistake. Presented with a relatively narrow legal issue, the Supreme Court chose to roll back laws that have limited the role of corporate money in federal elections since Teddy Roosevelt was president.”[60]RepresentativeAlan Grayson, a Democrat, stated that it was “the worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case, and that the court had opened the door to political bribery and corruption in elections to come.[61] Democratic congresswoman Donna Edwards, along with constitutional law professor and Maryland Democratic State Senator Jamie Raskin, have advocated petitions to reverse the decision by means of constitutional amendment.[62] Rep. Leonard Boswell introduced legislation to amend the constitution.[63] Senator John Kerry also called for an Amendment to overrule the decision.[64] On December 8, 2011, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed the Saving American Democracy Amendment, which would reverse the court’s ruling.[65][66]
Republican Senator John McCain, co-crafter of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, said “there’s going to be, over time, a backlash … when you see the amounts of union and corporate money that’s going to go into political campaigns”.[67] McCain was “disappointed by the decision of the Supreme Court and the lifting of the limits on corporate and union contributions” but not surprised by the decision, saying that “It was clear that Justice Roberts, Alito and Scalia, by their very skeptical and even sarcastic comments, were very much opposed to BCRA.”[60] Republican Senator Olympia Snowe opined that “Today’s decision was a serious disservice to our country.”[68]
Although federal law after Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission still prohibited corporate contributions to all political parties, Sanda Everette, co-chair of the Green Party, stated that “The ruling especially hurts the ability of parties that don’t accept corporate contributions, like the Green Party, to compete.” Another Green Party officer, Rich Whitney, stated “In a transparently political decision, a majority of the US Supreme Court overturned its own recent precedent and paid tribute to the giant corporate interests that already wield tremendous power over our political process and political speech.”
Ralph Nader, a lawyer who placed third in the popular vote in the presidential elections of 2000, 2004, and 2008, condemned the ruling,[69] saying that “With this decision, corporations can now directly pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars.” He called for shareholder resolutions asking company directors to pledge not to use company money to favor or oppose electoral candidates.[70]Pat Choate, former Reform Party candidate for Vice President, stated, “The court has, in effect, legalized foreign governments and foreign corporations to participate in our electoral politics.”[71]
International
Ambassador Janez Lenarčič, speaking for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe‘s election body, which has overseen over 150 elections, stated that the ruling may adversely affect the organization’s two commitments of “giving voters a genuine choice and giving candidates a fair chance” in that “it threatens to further marginalize candidates without strong financial backing or extensive personal resources, thereby in effect narrowing the political arena”.[72]
The constitutional law scholar Laurence H. Tribe wrote that the decision “marks a major upheaval in First Amendment law and signals the end of whatever legitimate claim could otherwise have been made by the Roberts Court to an incremental and minimalist approach to constitutional adjudication, to a modest view of the judicial role vis-à-vis the political branches, or to a genuine concern with adherence to precedent” and pointed out, “Talking about a business corporation as merely another way that individuals might choose to organize their association with one another to pursue their common expressive aims is worse than unrealistic; it obscures the very real injustice and distortion entailed in the phenomenon of some people using other people’s money to support candidates they have made no decision to support, or to oppose candidates they have made no decision to oppose.”[74]
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, whose opinions had changed from dissenting in Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce to co-authoring (with Stevens) the majority opinion in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission twelve years later, criticized the decision only obliquely, but warned, “In invalidating some of the existing checks on campaign spending, the majority in Citizens United has signaled that the problem of campaign contributions in judicial elections might get considerably worse and quite soon.”[75]
Richard L. Hasen, professor of election law at Loyola Law School, argued that the ruling “is activist, it increases the dangers of corruption in our political system and it ignores the strong tradition of American political equality”. He also described Justice Kennedy’s “specter of blog censorship” as sounding more like “the rantings of a right-wing talk show host than the rational view of a justice with a sense of political realism”.[76]
Kathleen M. Sullivan, professor at Stanford Law School and Steven J. Andre, adjunct professor at Lincoln Law School, argued that two different visions of freedom of speech exist and clashed in the case. An egalitarian vision skeptical of the power of large agglomerations of wealth to skew the political process conflicted with a libertarian vision skeptical of government being placed in the role of determining what speech people should or should not hear.[77][78] Wayne Batchis, Professor at the University of Delaware, in contrast, argues that the Citizens United decision represents a misguided interpretation of the non-textual freedom of association.[79]
The four other scholars of the seven writing in the aforementionedNew York Times article were critical.[52]Richard L. Hasen, Distinguished Professor of election law at Loyola Law School argued differently from his Slate article above, concentrating on the “inherent risk of corruption that comes when someone spends independently to try to influence the outcome of judicial elections”, since judges are less publicly accountable than elected officials. Heather K. Gerken, Professor of Law at Yale Law School wrote that “The court has done real damage to the cause of reform, but that damage mostly came earlier, with decisions that made less of a splash.” Michael Waldman, director of the Brennan Center for Justice at N.Y.U. School of Law, opined that the decision “matches or exceeds Bush v. Gore in ideological or partisan overreaching by the court”, explaining how “Exxon or any other firm could spend Bloomberg-level sums in any congressional district in the country against, say, any congressman who supports climate change legislation, or health care, etc.” andFred Wertheimer, founder and president of Democracy 21 considered that “Chief Justice Roberts has abandoned the illusory public commitments he made to ‘judicial modesty’ and ‘respect for precedent’ to cast the deciding vote for a radical decision that profoundly undermines our democracy,” and that “Congress and presidents past have recognized this danger and signed numerous laws over the years to prevent this kind of corruption of our government.”[52]
Journalists
The New York Times stated in an editorial, “The Supreme Court has handed lobbyists a new weapon. A lobbyist can now tell any elected official: if you vote wrong, my company, labor union or interest group will spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising against your re-election.”[80]Jonathan Alter called it the “most serious threat to American democracy in a generation”.[81] The Christian Science Monitor wrote that the Court had declared “outright that corporate expenditures cannot corrupt elected officials, that influence over lawmakers is not corruption, and that appearance of influence will not undermine public faith in our democracy”.[82]
Media coverage
Political blogs
Most blogs avoided the theoretical aspects of the decision and focused on more personal and dramatic elements, including the Barack Obama–Samuel Alito face-off during the President’s State of the Union address.[83] There, President Obama argued that the decision “reversed a century of law” (the federal ban on corporate and union expenditures dates from 1947) and that it would allow “foreign corporations to spend without limits in our elections”, during which Justice Alito, in the audience, perceptibly mouthed the words “not true”. This event received extensive comment from political bloggers, with a substantial amount of the coverage concentrated on whether or not foreign corporations would be able to make substantial political contributions in US elections. In the opinion, the Court had specifically indicated it was not overturning the ban on foreign contributions.
Opinion polls
ABC-Washington Post poll results.
An ABC–Washington Post poll conducted February 4–8, 2010, showed that 80% of those surveyed opposed (and 65% strongly opposed) the Citizens United ruling, which the poll described as saying “corporations and unions can spend as much money as they want to help political candidates win elections”. Additionally, 72% supported “an effort by Congress to reinstate limits on corporate and union spending on election campaigns”. The poll showed large majority support from Democrats, Republicans and independents.[84][85][86]
A Gallup Poll conducted in October 2009, after oral argument, but released after the Supreme Court released its opinion, found that 57 percent of those surveyed “agreed that money given to political candidates is a form of free speech” and 55 percent agreed that the “same rules should apply to individuals, corporations and unions”. However, in the same poll respondents by 52% to 41% prioritized limits on campaign contributions over protecting rights to support campaigns and 76% thought the government should be able to place limits on corporation or union donations.[87][88]
Separate polls by various conservative organizations, including the plaintiff Citizens United and the Center for Competitive Politics, found support for the decision.[89] In particular, the Center for Competitive Politics poll[90] found that 51% of respondents believed that Citizens United should have a right to air ads promoting Hillary: The Movie. The poll also found that only 22 percent had heard of the case.
SpeechNow is a nonprofit, unincorporated association organized as a section 527 entity under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. The organization was formed by individuals who seek to pool their resources to make independent expenditures expressly advocating the election or defeat of federal candidates. SpeechNow planned to accept contributions only from individuals, not corporations or other sources prohibited under the Federal Election Campaign Act. On February 14, 2008, SpeechNow and several individual plaintiffs filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the constitutionality of the Federal Election Campaign Act provisions governing political committee registration, contribution limits and disclosure. The plaintiffs contended that the Act unconstitutionally restricts their association guaranteed under the First Amendment. By requiring registration as a political committee and limiting the monetary amount that an individual may contribute to a political committee, SpeechNow and the other plaintiffs asserted that the Act unconstitutionally restricted the individuals’ freedom of speech by limiting the amount that an individual can contribute to SpeechNow and thus the amount the organization may spend. SpeechNow also argued that the reporting required of political committees is unconstitutionally burdensome.[91]
On March 26, 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in SpeechNow.org. v. FEC that the contribution limits of 2 U.S.C. §441a were unconstitutional as applied to individuals’ contributions to SpeechNow. The court also ruled that the reporting requirements of 2 U.S.C. §§432, 433 and 434(a) and the organizational requirements of 2 U.S.C. §431(4) and §431(8) can be constitutionally applied to SpeechNow.[91] A unanimous nine-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals[92] struck down the federal limits on contributions to federal political committees that make only independent expenditures and do not contribute to candidates or political parties. This type of “independent expenditure committee” is inherently non-corruptive, the Court reasoned, and therefore contributions to such a committee can not be limited based on the government’s interest in preventing political corruption.[28] In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, in which the Supreme Court held that the government has no anti-corruption interest in limiting independent expenditures, the appeals court ruled that “contributions to groups that make only independent expenditures cannot corrupt or create the appearance of corruption.” As a result, the court of appeals held that the government has no anti-corruption interest in limiting contributions to an independent group such as SpeechNow. Contribution limits as applied to SpeechNow “violate the First Amendment by preventing [individuals] from donating to SpeechNow in excess of the limits and by prohibiting SpeechNow from accepting donations in excess of the limits.” The court noted that its holding does not affect direct contributions to candidates, but rather contributions to a group that makes only independent expenditures.[91] The appeals court held that, while disclosure and reporting requirements do impose a burden on First Amendment interests, they “‘impose no ceiling on campaign related activities'” and “‘do not prevent anyone from speaking.'” Furthermore, the court held that the additional reporting requirements that the Commission would impose on SpeechNow if it were organized as a political committee are minimal, “given the relative simplicity with which SpeechNow intends to operate.” Since SpeechNow already had a number of “planned contributions” from individuals, the court ruled that SpeechNow could not compare itself to “ad hoc groups that want to create themselves on the spur of the moment.” Since the public has an interest in knowing who is speaking about a candidate and who is funding that speech, the court held that requiring such disclosure and organization as a political committee are sufficiently important governmental interests to justify the additional reporting and registration burdens on SpeechNow.[91]
On June 27, 2011, ruling in the consolidated cases Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett (No. 10-238) and McComish v. Bennett (No. 10-239), the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional an Arizona law that provided extra taxpayer-funded support for office seekers who have been outspent by privately funded opponents or by independent political groups. A conservative 5–4 majority of justices said the law violated free speech, concluding the state was impermissibly trying to “level the playing field” through a public finance system. Arizona lawmakers had argued there was a compelling state interest in equalizing resources among competing candidates and interest groups.[93] Opponents said the law violated free-speech rights of the privately financed candidates and their contributors, inhibiting fundraising and spending, discouraging participation in campaigns and limiting what voters hear about politics.[94] Chief Justice John Roberts said in the court’s majority opinion that the law substantially burdened political speech and was not sufficiently justified to survive First Amendment scrutiny.[94]
As a consequence of the decision, states and municipalities are blocked from using a method of public financing that is simultaneously likely to attract candidates fearful that they will be vastly outspent and sensitive to avoiding needless government expense. “The government can still use taxpayer funds to subsidize political campaigns, but it can only do that in a manner that provides an alternative to private financing” said William R. Maurer, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, which represented several challengers of the law. “It cannot create disincentives.”[95] The ruling meant the end of similar matching-fund programs in Connecticut, Maine and a few other places according to David Primo, a political science professor at the University of Rochester who was an expert witness for the law’s challengers.[96]
Despite the Citizens United ruling, In December 2011, the Montana Supreme Court, in Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Attorney General of Montana, upheld that state’s law limiting corporate contributions. Examining the history of corporate interference in Montana government that led to the Corrupt Practices Law, the majority decided that the state still had a compelling reason to maintain the restrictions. It ruled that these restrictions on speech were narrowly tailored and withstood strict scrutiny and thus did not contradict Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
While granting permission to file a Certiorari petition, the US Supreme Court agreed to stay the Montana ruling, although Justices Ginsburg and Breyer wrote a short statement urging the Court “to consider whether, in light of the huge sums of money currently deployed to buy candidate’s allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway”.[97] In June 2012, over the dissent of the same four judges who dissented in Citizens United, the Court simultaneously granted certiorari and summarily reversed the decision in Bullock.[98] The Supreme Court majority rejected the Montana Supreme Court arguments in a two paragraph, twenty line per curiam opinion, stating that these arguments “either were already rejected in Citizens United, or fail to meaningfully distinguish that case.”[99] The ruling makes clear that states cannot bar corporate and union political expenditures in state elections.[100]
Legislative responses
Legislative impact
The New York Times reported that 24 states with laws prohibiting or limiting independent expenditures by unions and corporations would have to change their campaign finance laws because of the ruling.[101]
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) proposed that candidates who sign up small donors receive $900,000 in public money. Others proposed that laws on corporate governance be amended to assure that shareholders vote on political expenditures.[81]
In February 2010, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, immediate past Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, outlined legislation aimed at undoing the decision.[102] In April 2010, they introduced such legislation in the Senate and House, respectively.[103] On June 24, 2010, H.R.5175 (The DISCLOSE Act) passed in the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate. It would have required additional disclosure by corporations of their campaign expenditures. The law, if passed, would also have prohibited political spending by U.S. companies with twenty percent or more foreign ownership, and by most government contractors.[104]
The DISCLOSE Act included exemptions to its rules given to certain special interests such as the National Rifle Association and the American Association of Retired Persons. These gaps within the proposal attracted criticism from lawmakers on both political parties. “They are auctioning off pieces of the First Amendment in this bill… The bigger you are, the stronger you are, the less disclosure you have,” said Republican Congressman Dan Lungren of California. Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff of California commented, “I wish there had been no carve-outs”.[105]
The DISCLOSE Act twice failed to pass the U.S. Senate in the 111th Congress, in both instances reaching only 59 of the 60 votes required to overcome a unified Republican filibuster.[106][107]
A trimmed back version of the DISCLOSE Act was reintroduced in both the House and Senate in 2012 but did not pass.[citation needed]
Some have argued for a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision. Move to Amend, a coalition formed in response to the ruling,[108] seeks to amend the Constitution to abolish corporate personhood, thus stripping corporations of all rights under the Constitution.[109][110] In an online chat with web community Reddit, President Obama endorsed further consideration of a constitutional amendment and stated “Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court Doesn’t revisit it)”.[111] He further elaborated that “Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.”[111]
States lawmakers and local elected officials urge for federal constitutional amendment[edit]
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia.[112][113]
On a local level, Washington D.C. and almost 400 other municipalities have also passed resolutions requesting a federal constitutional amendment—itemized on the United for the People website.[116]
Super PACs
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has often been credited for the creation of “super PACs“, political action committees which make no contributions to candidates or parties and so can accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions. Certainly, the holding in Citizens United helped affirm the legal basis for super PACs by deciding that, for purposes of establishing a “compelling government interest” of corruption sufficient to justify government limitations on political speech, “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption”.[117] However, it took another decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Speechnow.org v. Federal Election Commission, to actually authorize the creation of super PACs. While Citizens United held that corporations and unions could make independent expenditures, a separate provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act, at least as long interpreted by the Federal Election Commission, held that individuals could not contribute to a common fund without it becoming a PAC. PACs, in turn, were not allowed to accept corporate or union contributions of any size or to accept individual contributions in excess of $5000. In Speechnow.org, the D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc, held 9–0 that in light of Citizens United, such restrictions on the sources and size of contributions could not apply to an organization that made only independent expenditures in support of or opposition to a candidate, but not contributions to a candidate’s campaign.[118] The effectiveness of this system remains a hot topic in American politics. See Political Action Committee.
Citizens United and SpeechNOW left their imprint on the 2012 United States presidential election. In any event, the implications of Citizens United were quickly apparent. In March, 2010, the D.C. Circuit ruled that individuals could make unlimited contributions to so-called Super PACs, which supported individual candidates. This opened the door for Presidential campaigns in 2012 that were essentially underwritten by single individuals. Sheldon Adelson, the gambling entrepreneur, gave approximately fifteen million dollars to support Newt Gingrich. Foster Friess, a Wyoming financier, donated almost two million dollars to Rick Santorum’s Super PAC. Karl Rove organized Super PACs that spent over $300 million in support of Republicans during the 2012 elections.[119]
In addition to indirectly providing support for the creation of super PACs, Citizens United allowed incorporated 501(c)(4) public advocacy groups (such as the National Rifle Association or Sierra Club, or the group Citizens United itself) and trade associations to make expenditures in political races. Such groups may not, under the tax code, have a primary purpose of engaging in electoral advocacy. These organizations must disclose their expenditures, but unlike super PACs they do not have to include the names of their donors in their FEC filings. A number of partisan organizations, such as Karl Rove‘s influential conservativeCrossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies or the liberal 21st Century Colorado, have since registered as tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups (defined as groups promoting “social welfare”) and engaged in substantial political spending.[120][121] This has led to claims[122][123][124] of large secret donations, and questions about whether such groups should be required to disclose their donors. Historically, such non-profits have not been required to disclose their donors or names of members. See National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama.
Jump up^“Memorandum Opinion” (PDF). Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. District Court for the District of Columbia. 2008-01-15. Retrieved 2010-02-01.
Jump up^This has been argued to refer to the Tillman Act of 1907 and subsequent campaign finance laws like the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act,brookings.edu, blogs.wsj.com. Others suggested that he simply was paraphrasing a sentence in Justice Stevens’ dissent: “[t]he Court today rejects a century of history when it treats the distinction between corporate and individual campaign spending as an invidious novelty born of Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 (1990).” jurist.law.pitt.edu
Jump up^Wayne Batchis, Citizens United and the Paradox of “Corporate Speech”: From Freedom of Association to Freedom of The Association, 36 NYU Rev. L. & Soc. Change 5 (2012).
Jump up^Kirkpatrick, David D. (February 11, 2010). “Democrats Try to Rebuild Campaign-Spending Barriers”. The New York Times. p. A19. Retrieved February 14, 2010. “Congressional Democrats outlined legislation Thursday aimed at undoing a recent Supreme Court decision that allows corporations and interest groups to spend freely on political advertising.”
“Money Unlimited: How John Roberts Orchestrated Citizens United” written by Jeffrey Toobin and published by The New Yorker on May 21, 2012. An article about the beginnings of Campaign finance law i.e. theTillman Act of 1907, the Supreme Court case history regarding campaign finance before Citizens United, the court proceedings leading up to the Citizens United ruling and the aftermath of the Citizens United ruling.
Story 1: Obama’s IRS Scandal — Criminal Conspiracy At The IRS — Deliberate Deletion of E-Mails To Cover Up Scandal of Targeting Conservative, Tea Party, Pro Life, Pro Israel Groups — Obstruction of Justice — Time For Special Prosecutor — Television Networks Not Reporting On IRS Scandal — No Backups and Restores of IRS Email Server — Unbelievable — Conspiracy To Obstruct Justice — Inching Towards Impeachment — Videos
Story 1: Obama’s IRS Scandal — Criminal Conspiracy At The IRS — Deliberate Deletion of E-Mails To Cover Up Scandal of Targeting Conservative, Tea Party, Pro Life, Pro Israel Groups — Obstruction of Justice — Time For Special Prosecutor — Television Networks Not Reporting On IRS Scandal — No Backups and Restores of IRS Email Server — Unbelievable — Conspiracy To Obstruct Justice — Inching Towards Impeachment — Videos
Article 2
Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.
He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner. …
Official Impeachment Judge – Obama Facing Life In Prison Aiding TALIBAN SWAP RESULTS
McCarthy: Obama ‘Has Stepped Over’ Standard for Impeachment ‘Many Times’
Fmr. Fed. Prosecutor: Need To Make Case For Obama Impeachment – 2/11/2014
Mark Levin interviews Andrew C. McCarthy on his book “Faithless Execution” (PART 1 of 2)
Mark Levin interviews Andrew C. McCarthy on his book “Faithless Execution” (PART 2 of 2)
Andrew C. McCarthy: Faithless Execution: Building a Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment
Judge Jeanine Pirro Calls for Impeachment of Barack Obama
Judge Jeanine Pirro – Fast Justice – IRS Claims They Lois Lerner Emails
McConnell Questions ‘Lost’ IRS Scandal Emails
IRS: Lois Lerner Emails Lost – Special Report All Star Panel
IRS Scandal – Game Over – Issa Subpoenas IRS Head Over Lerner Emails – Fox & Friends
IRS Scandal – Emails Of Six Prominent IRS Officials Also Missing – Outnumbered
IRS Scandal – IRS Can’t Produce Records From Six Employees Involved In Scandal – Stuart Varney
IRS Scandal – Group Targeted In IRS Scandal Reacts To Lost Lois Lerner E-Mails – America’s Newsroom
IRS Scandal – Oops , IRS Claims They’ve Lost Lerner’s Emails – Fox & Friends
How your email server works
Introduction to SQL Server Database Backup and Restore
Rep. Mike Kelly Calls for Special Prosecutor to Investigate IRS Targeting
DOJ Rejects Sen Ted Cruz’s Request For Special Prosecutor In IRS Scandal – Cavuto
Gowdy discusses the need for a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS
Judge Jeanine Slams IRS, NSA and Obama for Expanding Surveillance State
(a)Offense.— Whoever provides material support or resources or conceals or disguises the nature, location, source, or ownership of material support or resources, knowing or intending that they are to be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, a violation of section 32, 37, 81, 175, 229, 351, 831, 842(m) or (n), 844(f) or (i), 930(c), 956, 1091,1114, 1116, 1203, 1361, 1362, 1363, 1366, 1751, 1992, 2155, 2156, 2280, 2281, 2332,2332a, 2332b, 2332f, 2340A, or 2442 of this title, section 236 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2284), section 46502 or 60123(b) of title 49, or any offense listed in section 2332b(g)(5)(B) (except for sections 2339A and 2339B) or in preparation for, or in carrying out, the concealment of an escape from the commission of any such violation, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both, and, if the death of any person results, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life. A violation of this section may be prosecuted in any Federal judicial district in which the underlying offense was committed, or in any other Federal judicial district as provided by law.
(b)Definitions.— As used in this section—
(1)the term “material support or resources” means any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials;
(2)the term “training” means instruction or teaching designed to impart a specific skill, as opposed to general knowledge; and
(3)the term “expert advice or assistance” means advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge.
UPDATED: Obama waives ban on arming terrorists to allow aid to Syrian opposition
JOEL GEHRKE •
President Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to “vetted” opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
Some elements of the Syrian opposition are associated with radical Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, which was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., in 2001. Assad’s regime is backed by Iran and Hezbollah.
The president, citing his authority under the Arms Export Control Act, announced today that he would “waive the prohibitions in sections 40 and 40A of the AECA related to such a transaction.”
Those two sections prohibit sending weaponry to countries described in section 40(d): “The prohibitions contained in this section apply with respect to a country if the Secretary of State determines that the government of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” Congress stated in the Arms Control Export Act.
“For purposes of this subsection, such acts shall include all activities that the Secretary determines willfully aid or abet the international proliferation of nuclear explosive devices to individuals or groups or willfully aid or abet an individual or groups in acquiring unsafeguarded special nuclear material,” the law continues.
The law allows the president to waive those prohibitions if he “determines that the transaction is essential to the national security interests of the United States.”
Under section 40(g) of the AECA, the Obama team must also provide Congress — at least 15 days before turning over the weapons — “the name of any country involved in the proposed transaction, the identity of any recipient of the items to be provided pursuant to the proposed transaction, and the anticipated use of those items,” along with a list of the weaponry to be provided, when they will be delivered, and why the transfer is key to American security interests.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., endorsed providing military assistance to the Syrian opposition during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday.
“Our intelligence agencies, I think, have a very good handle on who to support and who not to support,” Corker said. “And there’s going to be mistakes. We understand some people are going to get arms that should not be getting arms. But we still should be doing everything we can to support the free Syrian opposition.”
UPDATE: White House releases statement on waiver
National Security Council spokesman Caitlin Hayden issued the following statement concerning the president’s actions with regard to waiving certain controls on military aid in the Syrian crisis:
“This action will allow the U.S. Government to provide or license, where appropriate, certain non-lethal assistance inside or related to Syria. This includes: 1) chemical weapons-related personal protective equipment to international organizations, including the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, for the conduct of their operations; 2) chemical weapons-related life-saving assistance for organizations implementing Department of State or U.S. Agency for International Development programs to strengthen local Syrian health care providers’ ability to prepare for and respond to any use of chemical weapons; and 3) defensive chemical weapons-related training and personal protective equipment to select vetted members of the Syrian opposition, including the Supreme Military Council, to protect against the use of chemical weapons. This action is part of longstanding and ongoing efforts to provide life-saving chemical weapons-related assistance to people in need in Syria.”
Attkisson On Missing IRS Documents: If The Emails Really Are Lost, ‘That’s Quite A Story In Itself’
Dom Giordano
Dom Giordano spoke with reporter Sharyl Attkisson about an announcement from the House Ways and Means Committee that the IRS reported losing all of Lois Lerner’s emails from 2009 to 2011.
Lerner was formerly the head of the IRS division on tax-exempt organizations, and Republicans charge she oversaw the targeting of conservative political groups for excess scrutiny in their application for tax-exempt status.
Attkisson said there should be procedures in place to prevent something like this from happening.
“These emails are not stored on a signal server or a single computer, so if there were a crash of a hard drive or some sort of system failure, they would still be retrievable. According to [John] Koskinen, the IRS Commissioner at the time, he told Congress that emails were stored offsite. That jives with people who said emails were backed up daily. There is a responsibility on the part of government officials to retain the data, make sure that is and can’t be lost in the system. If it’s true that the emails are lost, that’s quite a story in itself,” she said.
She thinks Congress should act fast to investigate if anyone inside the IRS is attempting to hide or destroy the emails.
“I would call in certain officials. Let’s assume there could have been some mischief committed — before they have time to get their stories straight and fix things up, I would get them in there under oath and start digging down and getting the timeline and getting people on the record about this. The only people that I see than can do this are members of Congress. The question is, do they have the will to do that?” Attkisson stated.
Attkisson said that regardless of whether the emails were lost accidentally or improperly, the individuals responsible should be held accountable.
“One official wrote me…to say this is entirely implausible, and he said there are criminal penalties for destroying federal records, which makes sense, including liability for negligence for not taking the necessary steps to protect files, including a federal requirement to backup data. This doesn’t happen. He said … all email servers are backed up with something called ‘RAID’ (Redundant Array Of Independent Disks), and it’s nearly impossible for something to delete the files, and that even if that were to happen they would not be gone forever,” she said.
“One final comment that this particular guy made, he said if there was a cover-up here — let’s just assume for the sake of argument that maybe something went wrong — he said laws have been broken during an alleged coverup that are much easier to prove than the original act, some poor IT schmuck, if you get him under oath, he will fold like a cheap suit, and I do feel like there is some truth to that. So if you call in the IT professionals who supposedly reported the crash and went after the irretrievable material and found they couldn’t be found I think you’d probably get the truth; and maybe the truth is nothing more than what the IRS says, but it’s just strange that they kept the subpoena and official request from Congress for 7-10 months without mentioning it that the emails don’t exist or are that they were gone. And it also then would be exposing a huge vulnerability in our federal computers if indeed data has been irretrievably lost by this. Remember, but the IRS is part of Healthcare.gov, if the IRS system can indeed be so vulnerable that some sort of crash can lose all kind of important data like this, what does t say about the federal system?”
RESOLVED, That Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanours, and that the following articles of impeachment to be exhibited to the Senate:
ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT EXHIBITED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN THE NAME OF ITSELF AND OF ALL OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AGAINST RICHARD M. NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT OF ITS IMPEACHMENT AGAINST HIM FOR HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS.
ARTICLE 1
In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his consitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that:
On June 17, 1972, and prior thereto, agents of the Committee for the Re-election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence. Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.
The means used to implement this course of conduct or plan included one or more of the following:
making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counselling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;
interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;
approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities;
endeavouring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States;
disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability;
making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct: or
endeavouring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favoured treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.
In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Adopted 27-11 by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, at 7.07pm on Saturday, 27th July, 1974, in Room 2141 of the Rayburn Office Building, Washington D.C.
Listen to the roll call of the Judiciary Committee on the First Article of Impeachment
Listen to the Announcement of the Vote.
Article 2
Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.
This conduct has included one or more of the following:
He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.
He misused the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and other executive personnel, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, by directing or authorizing such agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; he did direct, authorize, or permit the use of information obtained thereby for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; and he did direct the concealment of certain records made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of electronic surveillance.
He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, authorized and permitted to be maintained a secret investigative unit within the office of the President, financed in part with money derived from campaign contributions, which unlawfully utilized the resources of the Central Intelligence Agency, engaged in covert and unlawful activities, and attempted to prejudice the constitutional right of an accused to a fair trial.
He has failed to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by failing to act when he knew or had reason to know that his close subordinates endeavoured to impede and frustrate lawful inquiries by duly constituted executive, judicial and legislative entities concerning the unlawful entry into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and the cover-up thereof, and concerning other unlawful activities including those relating to the confirmation of Richard Kleindienst as Attorney General of the United States, the electronic surveillance of private citizens, the break-in into the offices of Dr. Lewis Fielding, and the campaign financing practices of the Committee to Re-elect the President.
In disregard of the rule of law, he knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Division, and the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, of the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency, in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Adopted 28-10 by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.
Article 3
In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has failed without lawful cause or excuse to produce papers and things as directed by duly authorized subpoenas issued by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives on April 11, 1974, May 15, 1974, May 30, 1974, and June 24, 1974, and willfully disobeyed such subpoenas. The subpoenaed papers and things were deemed necessary by the Committee in order to resolve by direct evidence fundamental, factual questions relating to Presidential direction, knowledge or approval of actions demonstrated by other evidence to be substantial grounds for impeachment of the President. In refusing to produce these papers and things Richard M. Nixon, substituting his judgment as to what materials were necessary for the inquiry, interposed the powers of the Presidency against the the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, thereby assuming to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the sole power of impeachment vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives.
In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.
Adopted 21-17 by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.
Story 1: Surprise There Is Coordination Between Reporters and Politicians — Prescreening of Questions — Really — No Kidding — I’m Crusdhed — The Decline and Fall of Investigative Journalism — The Rise of Press Propaganda — In The Tank For Obama — IRS Scandal Pops Up — Videos
Top House Republican: We Already Caught WH Lying About IRS Scandal
Krauthammer: If White House Had Any Connection To IRS Scandal, It Will Be ‘Fatal Problem’ For Obama
Carney: White House Heard Reports, But Didn’t Ask About IRS Scandal
IRS Scandal White House Apppointee Directly Involved
The Obama IRS Targeting Scandal in Five Minutes – Unbelievable Abuse of Power
Rep. Issa: Jay Carney is a ‘paid liar’
6/03/13 Jay Carney responds to being called a paid liar
BOOM! Rep. Issa Has Information That Will Link IRS Scandal Up Into the White House
Fmr. IRS Official Refuses to Testify at Hearing
House CMTE Releases Scathing Report On Lois Lerner’s Involvement In IRS Scandal – Forbes On Fox
Issa Fires Back: Cummings ‘Decided to Have Quite a Hissy Fit’
Justice Dept Denies Request For Special Prosecutor In IRS Scandal – America’s Newsroom
Goldberg on IRS Scandal on IRS
2013 In Review – The Scandals – DOJ, NSA, IRS, Benghazi & The Obama Admin Big Lie – Hannity
Jon Stewart Blasts President: Obama Learns About Scandals by Watching the News?
Sharyl Attkisson: There Is Coordination Between Reporters And Politicians
By Chris Stigall
Chris Stigall talked to former CBS News Reporter Sharyl Attkisson this morning on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT about the trouble reporters have to deal with while covering politicians and the government, as well as the current state of investigative reporting.
Responding to comments regarding a Phoenix television reporter yesterday who initially claimed that the White House pre-screens questions from reporters, Attkisson said, “I wouldn’t surprised if sometimes there is that level of cooperation with some questions. If I need something answered from the White House and they won’t tell me, I’ll call our White House Correspondent. They’re friendlier with the White House Correspondents in general. So the White House Correspondent may ask Jay Carney or one of his folks about an issue and they will be told ‘ask that at the briefing and we’ll answer it.’ They want to answer it in front of everybody. They do know it’s coming and they’ll call on you. There’s that kind of coordination sometimes. I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s sometimes more coordination. I don’t think it’s everybody on every briefing, every day. I’m pretty sure it’s not. But I think people would be surprised at the level of cooperation reporters have in general with politicians.”
She also said it is more and more difficult for investigative reporters to get their stories published or on the air because of the trouble it may cause.
“Nobody was interested in the stories. It didn’t seem to matter what the topic was. There’s sort of a problem all over, I talk to my colleagues in different mediums. There’s just a lot of pressure. Investigative reporting gets a lot of backlash. They don’t quite know how to deal with it. Why not just put on stories that don’t draw that kind of response?”
Attkisson also confirmed she’s working on a bookabout how stories are reported in the media.
“I’ve been wanting to write about the unseen influences on the media by coordinated, paid factions, whether they’re from political, corporate or other special interests, the tactics they use to manipulate the images we see, not just in the news but on Facebook, Wikipedia, or fake Twitter accounts. It’s become a way of life and I don’t think the public is aware of how much nearly everything you see today may be influenced, in some fashion, by a paid interest that wants you to think something,” Attkisson said.
To be tax-exempt as a social welfare organization described in Internal Revenue Code (IRC) section 501(c)(4), an organization must not be organized for profit and must be operated exclusively to promote social welfare. The earnings of a section 501(c)(4) organization may not inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transactionwith a person having substantial influence over the organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any managers agreeing to the transaction. See Introduction to IRC 4958 for more information about this excise tax. For a more detailed discussion of the exemption requirements for section 501(c)(4) organizations, see IRC 501(c)(4) Organizations. For more information about applying for exemption, see Application for Recognition of Exemption.
To be operated exclusively to promote social welfare, an organization must operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community (such as by bringing about civic betterment and social improvements). For example, an organization that restricts the use of its facilities to employees of selected corporations and their guests is primarily benefiting a private group rather than the community and, therefore, does not qualify as a section 501(c)(4) organization. Similarly, an organization formed to represent member-tenants of an apartment complex does not qualify, because its activities benefit the member-tenants and not all tenants in the community, while an organization formed to promote the legal rights of all tenants in a particular community may qualify under section 501(c)(4) as a social welfare organization. An organization is not operated primarily for the promotion of social welfare if its primary activity is operating a social club for the benefit, pleasure or recreation of its members, or is carrying on a business with the general public in a manner similar to organizations operated for profit link].
Seeking legislation germane to the organization’s programs is a permissible means of attaining social welfare purposes. Thus, a section 501(c)(4) social welfare organization may further its exempt purposes through lobbying as its primary activity without jeopardizing its exempt status. An organization that has lost its section 501(c)(3) status due to substantial attempts to influence legislation may not thereafter qualify as a section 501(c)(4) organization. In addition, a section 501(c)(4) organization that engages in lobbying may be required to either provide notice to its members regarding the percentage of dues paid that are applicable to lobbying activities or pay a proxy tax. For more information, see Lobbying Issues .
The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. However, a section 501(c)(4) social welfare organization may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity. However, any expenditure it makes for political activities may be subject to tax under section 527(f). For further information regarding political and lobbying activities of section 501(c) organizations, see Election Year Issues, Political Campaign and Lobbying Activities of IRC 501(c)(4), (c)(5), and (c)(6) Organizations, and Revenue Ruling 2004-6.
A 501(c) organization, also known colloquially as a 501(c), is an American tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Section 501(c) of the United States Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C.§ 501(c)) provides that 29 types of nonprofit organizations are exempt from somefederalincome taxes. Sections 503 through 505 set out the requirements for attaining such exemptions. Many states refer to Section 501(c) for definitions of organizations exempt from state taxation as well.
The most common type of tax-exempt nonprofit organization falls under category 501(c)(3), whereby a nonprofit organization is exempt from federal income tax if its activities have the following purposes: charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering amateur sports competition, or preventing cruelty to children or animals.
Types
According to the IRS Publication 557†, in the Organization Reference Chart section, the following is an exact list of 501(c) organization types and their corresponding descriptions.[1]
501(c)(1) — Corporations Organized Under Act of Congress (including Federal Credit Unions)
501(c)(2) — Title Holding Corporation for Exempt Organization[2]
501(c)(3) — Religious, Educational, Charitable, Scientific, Literary, Testing for Public Safety, to Foster National or International Amateur Sports Competition, or Prevention of Cruelty to Children or Animals Organizations
501(c)(4) — Civic Leagues, Social Welfare Organizations, and Local Associations of Employees
501(c)(5) — Labor, Agricultural and Horticultural Organizations
501(c)(6) — Business Leagues, Chambers of Commerce, Real Estate Boards, etc.
501(c)(28) — National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust
501(c)(29) — Qualified Nonprofit Health Insurance Issuers (Created in section 1322(h)(1) of the Affordable Care Act)[3]
† 501(c)(20) and 501(c)(24) organization types receive little mention in IRS Publication 557 and are not included in its Organization Reference Chart. 501(c)(20) organizations are no longer tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(20) after June 30, 1992, but they may request to become exempt under Section 501(c)(9) effective July 1, 1992.[4] 501(c)(24) organizations are described as Section 4049 ERISA Trusts; Section 4049 of ERISA has been repealed.[5]
Certain day care centers may qualify as tax-exempt under Section 501(k).[6][7][8] The day care center must provide child care away from their homes.[7] At least 85 percent of the children served must be cared for while their parent or guardian is either employed, seeking employment, or a full-time student.[9] Most of the day care center’s funding must come from fees received for day care services.[9] The day care center must also provide child care services to the general public.[7] The tax exemption for certain day care centers was part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984.[8]
General compliance issues
Under Section 511, a 501(c) organization is subject to tax on its “unrelated business income“, whether or not the organization actually makes a profit, but not including selling donated merchandise or other business or trade carried on by volunteers, or certain bingo games.[10] Disposal of donated goods valued over $2,500, or acceptance of goods worth over $5,000 may also trigger special filing and record-keeping requirements.
Tax exemption does not excuse an organization from maintaining proper records and filing any required annual or special-purpose tax returns, e.g., 26 U.S.C.§ 6033 and 26 U.S.C.§ 6050L. Prior to 2008, annual returns were not generally required from an exempt organization accruing less than $25,000 in gross income yearly.[11] However, from 2008 onwards, many such organizations must file a yearly “e-Postcard” known as Form 990-N, or risk losing their exemption, with the maximum accrual being $50,000 to file a 990-N now.[12] Form 990-N must be submitted electronically using an authorized IRS efile provider. Other types of Form 990 may be submitted via mail and some are available electronically through an IRS efile provider. IRS
Failure to file required returns such as Form 990 (Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax) may result in monetary fines of up to $250,000 per year. Exempt or political organizations (excluding churches or similar religious entities) must make their returns, reports, notices, and exempt applications available for public inspection. The organization’s Form 990 (or similar such public record as the Form 990-EZ or Form 990-PF) is generally available for public inspection and photocopying at the offices of the exempt organization, through a written request and payment for photocopies by mail from the exempt organization, or through a direct Form 4506-A Request for Public Inspection or Copy or Political Organization IRS Form request to the IRS of the exempt organization filing of Form 990 for the past three tax years. The Form 4506-A also allows the public inspection and/or photocopying access to Form 1023 Application for Recognition of Exemption or Form 1024, Form 8871 Political Organization Notice of Section 527 Status, and Form 8872 Political Organization Report of Contribution and Expenditures. Internet access to an organization’s 990 and some other forms are available through information services such as GuideStar.
Failure to file such timely returns and to make other specific information available to the public also is prohibited.[13]
Another provision, 26 U.S.C.§ 170, provides a deduction, for federal income tax purposes, for some donors who make charitable contributions to most types of 501(c)(3) organizations, among others. Regulations specify which such deductions must be verifiable to be allowed (e.g., receipts for donations over $250). Due to the tax deductions associated with donations, loss of 501(c)(3) status can be highly challenging to a charity’s continued operation, as many foundations and corporate matching programs do not grant funds to a charity without such status, and individual donors often do not donate to such a charity due to the unavailability of the deduction.
Testing for public safety is described under section 509(a)(4) of the code, which makes the organization a public charity and not a private foundation,[21] but contributions to 509(a)(4) organizations are not deductible by the donor for federal income, estate, or gift tax purposes.
The two exempt classifications of 501(c)(3) organizations are as follows:[22]
A public charity, identified by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as “not a private foundation”, normally receives a substantial part of its income, directly or indirectly, from the general public or from the government. The public support must be fairly broad, not limited to a few individuals or families. Public charities are defined in the Internal Revenue Code under sections 509(a)(1) through 509(a)(4).
A private foundation, sometimes called a non-operating foundation, receives most of its income from investments and endowments. This income is used to make grants to other organizations, rather than being disbursed directly for charitable activities. Private foundations are defined in the Internal Revenue Code under section 509(a) as 501(c)(3) organizations, which do not qualify as public charities.
Churches must meet specific requirements in order to obtain and maintain tax exempt status; these are outlined in IRS Publication 1828: Tax guide for churches and religious organizations.[23] This guide outlines activities allowed and not allowed by churches under the 501(c)(3) designation. A private, nonprofit organization, GuideStar, also provides reputable and detailed results for web-based searching to verify information on 501(c)(3) organizations.[24][better source needed]
Before donating to a 501(c)(3) organization, a donor may wish to consult the searchable online IRS list of charitable organizations[25] as well as lists which may be maintained by a state on a portion of its web portal devoted to its “department of justice” or “office of attorney general”.
Consumers may file IRS Form 13909 with documentation to complain about inappropriate or fraudulent (i.e., fundraising, political campaigning, lobbying) activities by any 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.[26]
Obtaining status
The basic requirement of obtaining tax exempt status is that the organization is specifically limited in powers to purposes that the IRS classifies as tax exempt purposes. Unlike for-profit corporations that benefit from broad and general purposes, non profit organizations need to be limited in powers to function with tax exempt status, but a non profit corporation is by default not limited in powers until it specifically limits itself in the articles of incorporation and/or nonprofit corporate bylaws. This limiting of the powers is crucial to obtaining tax exempt status with the IRS and then on the state level.[27] Organizations acquire 501(c)(3) tax exemption by filing IRS Form 1023. The form must be accompanied by a $850 filing fee if the yearly gross receipts for the organization are expected to average $10,000 or more.[28][29] If yearly gross receipts are expected to average less than $10,000, the filing fee is reduced to $400.[28][29] There are some classes of organizations that automatically are treated as tax exempt under 501(c)(3), without the need to file Form 1023:
Churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations of churches[30]
Organizations that are not private foundations and that have gross receipts that normally are not more than $5,000[31]
The IRS also expects to release a software tool called Cyber Assistant, which will assist with preparation of the application for tax exemption, but as of late 2011 the release date is unclear.[32]
There is an alternative way for an organization to obtain status if an organization has applied for a determination and either there is an actual controversy regarding a determination or the Internal Revenue Service has failed to make a determination. In these cases, the United States Tax Court, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and the United States Court of Federal Claims have concurrent jurisdiction to issue a declaratory judgment of the organization’s qualification if the organization has exhausted administrative remedies with the Internal Revenue Service.[33][34]
Political activity
Section 501(c)(3) organizations are prohibited from supporting political candidates, and are subject to limits on lobbying. They risk loss of tax exempt status if these rules are violated.[35][36] An organization that loses its 501(c)(3) status due to being engaged in political activities cannot then qualify for 501(c)(4) status.[37]
Elections
Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are prohibited from conducting political campaign activities to intervene in elections to public office.[38] The Internal Revenue Service website elaborates upon this prohibition as follows:
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.
Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances. For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.
On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that
(a) would favor one candidate over another;
(b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or
(c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates,
will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.
The Internal Revenue Service provides resources to exempt organizations and the public to help them understand the prohibition. As part of its examination program, the IRS also monitors whether organizations are complying with the prohibition.
Lobbying
In contrast to the prohibition on political campaign interventions by all section 501(c)(3) organizations, public charities (but not private foundations) may conduct a limited amount oflobbying to influence legislation. Although the law states that “No substantial part…” of a public charity’s activities can go to lobbying, charities with large budgets may lawfully expend a million dollars (under the “expenditure” test), or more (under the “substantial part” test) per year on lobbying.[39] To clarify the standard of the “substantial part” test, Congress enacted §501 (h) (called the Conable election after its author, Representative Barber Conable). The section establishes limits based on operating budget that a charity can use to determine if it meets the substantial test. This changes the prohibition against direct intervention in partisan contests only for lobbying. The organization is now presumed in compliance with the substantiality test if they work within the limits. The Conable Election requires a charity to file a declaration with the IRS and file a functional distribution of funds spreadsheet with their Form 990. IRS form 5768[40] is required to make the Conable election.
501(c)(4) organizations are generally civic leagues and other corporations operated exclusively for the promotion of “social welfare”, such as civics and civics issues, or local associations of employees with membership limited to a designated company or people in a particular municipality or neighborhood, and with net earnings devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes.[41] An organization is operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare if it is primarily engaged in promoting the common good and general welfare of the people of the community.[37][42]
501(c)(4) organizations may inform the public on controversial subjects and attempt to influence legislation relevant to its program[43] and, unlike 501(c)(3) organizations, they may also participate in political campaigns and elections, as long as their primary activity is the promotion of social welfare.[44] The tax exemption for 501(c)(4) organizations applies to most of their operations, but contributions may be subject to gift tax, and income spent on political activities – generally the advocacy of a particular candidate in an election – is taxable.[45] An “action” organization generally qualifies as a 501(c)(4) organization.[46] An “action” organization is one whose activities substantially include, or are exclusively,[47]direct lobbying or grass roots lobbying related to advocacy for or against legislation or proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation that is related to its purpose.[48] A 501(c)(4) organization may directly or indirectly support or oppose a candidate for public office as long as such activities are not a substantial amount of its activities.[37][49]
Contributions to 501(c)(4) organizations are usually not deductible as charitable contributions for U.S. federal income tax, with a few exceptions.[50] Dues or contributions to 501(c)(4) organizations may be deductible as a business expense under IRC 162, although amounts paid for intervention or participation in any political campaign, direct lobbying, grass roots lobbying, and contact with certain federal officials are not deductible.[51] If a 501(c)(4) engages in a substantial amount of these activities, then only the amount of dues or contributions that can be attributed to other activities may be deductible as a business expense.[52] The organization should provide a notice to its members containing a reasonable estimate of the amount related to lobbying and political campaign expenditures, or else the organization is subject to a proxy tax on its lobbying and political campaign expenditures.[51] The organization should also provide an express statement that contributions to the organization are not deductible as charitable contributions during fundraising solicitations.[51]
501(c)(4) organizations are not required to disclose their donors publicly.[53] The lack of disclosure has led to extensive use of the 501(c)(4) provisions for organizations that are actively involved in lobbying, and has become controversial.[54][55] Criticized as “dark money“, spending from these organizations on political TV ads has exceeded spending fromSuper PACs.[56][57]
The origins of 501(c)(4) organizations date back to the Revenue Act of 1913, which created a new group of tax-exempt organizations dedicated to social welfare in a precursor to what is now Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(4).[58]
501(c)(5)
501(c)(5) organizations include labor, agricultural and horticultural organizations. Labor unions, county fairs and flower societies are examples of these types of groups. They share a requirement that benefits may not inure to a specific member but the rules for inurement vary among the three different types of organizations under this segment.[59]
Much like 501(c)(4) groups, there has been some movement toward using 501(c)(6) groups for political purposes. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a perennial large spender on politics, and Freedom Partners used 501(c)(6) status to raise and distribute over $250 million to groups during 2012 election campaigns without disclosing its donors.[60] The group’s existence was not publicly known until nearly a year after the election.
Segment 0: The Dirty Dozen aka Soros, Obama, Jarrett, Shulman, Kelley, Hall, Lerner, Paz, Thomas, Seck, IRS Agents: White House–IRS Collectivist Conspiracy Targets Pro Israel, Pro Life, Tea Party and Conservative Movement Groups To Suppress Voter Turnout! — Videos
IRS Subject Matter Expert
Holly Paz
Manager
Exempt Organizations Guidance
Holly is a manager in Exempt Organizations’ Guidance office, which is responsible for drafting notices, announcements, revenue procedures, and other guidance on exempt organization matters. Holly’s work often involves coordination with the Office of Chief Counsel and the Treasury Department on legislative and technical issues, as well as providing information to the tax writing committees of Congress.
Before coming to Exempt Organizations, Holly served as an attorney-advisor in the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent organization within the Internal Revenue Service that helps taxpayers resolve problems with the IRS. She also worked for eight years as an attorney in private practice focusing on exempt organizations issues. She earned her juris doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
The Dirty Dozen Movie Trailer
Dirty Dozen (1967) – General Inspection
Movie of the Week: Dirty Dozen – Lee Marvin Review by Best Movies By Farr
Glenn Beck » IRS, ObamaCare, And The White House
George Soros Exposed – Puppet master Glenn Beck
George Soros and the economy – GBTV
The Shadow Party – GBTV
Obama Admin Evolution Of A Scandal – IRS Enemies List – Hannity
Reality Check: IRS Scandal Exclusive
Heads are starting to roll at the IRS. Ben is following a story that is going in many directions. With many who are distancing themselves. In fact, He first told
you on March 1, 2012 that Tea Party and Liberty Groups in seven states claimed they were being targeted by the IRS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Sit-….
In this Reality Check compilation, Ben goes in-depth on the IRS vs. Tea Party, Liberty groups, and religious organizations.
The IRS apologized. The white House decries the unacceptable actions and any connection to the current administration.
Ben has tracked the chain of command through the Cincinnati office and is going to show you how this situation transitions into the Washington D.C. office, and possibly beyond.
Obama Admin IRS Scandal & Congress Dealing With Scandals – Krauthammer On O’Reilly
IRS Worker At Center Of Targeting Scandal Gets Promoted -RPT – Cavuto – Wake Up America
Goldberg on IRS Scandal on IRS
Stein on IRS Scandal
IRS – May 6th Letter To Conservative Group Suggest Targeting Is Not Over Cavuto
Tea Party Groups Protests The IRS
The Blaze TV “The IRS Tax Scandal” Matt Kibbe & Adam Brandon 5/29/13
Part II – The Blaze TV “The IRS Tax Scandal” Matt Kibbe & Adam Brandon 5/29/13
Tea Party Groups To Sue IRS Over Targeting Of Conservatives – Megyn Kelly -Wake Up America
Katie Pavlich on Shulman’s 159 Visits to WH – IRS Scandal with Neil Cavuto – Fox Business – 5-30-13
IRS Scandal, How High Does It Go? Catastrophic Failure! – Greta On The Record
FreedomWorks VP: IRS Scandal Just Beginning [The Christian Broadcasting Network]
IRS Scandal – New Information On IRS Chain Of Command – Missing Link Cindy Thomas? – Megyn Kelly
IRS Targeting Scandal Sarah Hall Inram Now Running Obamacare Office & Benghazi Update
Glenn Beck » IRS, ObamaCare, And The White House
You are a conspiracy theorist if you blame Obama
Peakaboo Politics: The IRS Scandal — A Timeline of Confusing Statements
IRS Lois Lerner Pleads The Fifth, Dismissed From Scandal Hearing
IRS 5-22-2013 House Oversight Committee 4
TRIFECTA — Targeting Tea: Obama’s IRS Singles Out Conservative Groups
Mark Levin on Hannity: Obama Said Only Learned About IRS Story on Friday
The IRS and Sarah Hall Ingram
The IRS And ObamaCare
Former IRS Commish Shulman cites Easter Egg Roll for visiting White House 118 times
U.S. Treasury Knew About I.R.S. Partisanship
Why IRS Scandal Could Haunt Obama
FTN: NTEU urges political contributions
Why I Serve: Colleen Kelley, National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU)
Fall of America: G. Edward Griffin on Conspiracy Theories
G. Edward Griffin – The Collectivist Conspiracy
PJTV: Obama IRS Scandal Uncovers the Ugly Side of Income Taxes
IRS scandal: GOP looks to seize election opportunity, CBS News Video 5-30-2013
FreedomWorks On Tap “The IRS Tax Terror” 5-16-13
Obama’s Big Oil Scandal with Socialism, Soros and Organized Crime Part 1
“Obama administrations corruption is taking America into socialism just as FDR did. George Soros has had direct financial ties to the gulf oil disaster and media matters in owned by George Soros defending his corrupt socialist agenda. Obama’s Crime Inc is now a network of thieves and it can be traced. To get in office, Socialist Progressives who control and run the Democrat party, always say one thing about being for average person to get elected without any specifics, then once in power, they increase the size of government to create a class system and network where their rich and powerful supporters are given special favors for supporting a socialist regime in America with TAXPAYER DOLLARS. Socialist Progressives are the ones who create the winners and loser in our American economy and have always made it their priority to collapse the US Economy while taking away every American citizens freedoms, except any freedom that in lockstep with destroying the American Culture, the American traditional family, the next generation, and keeping the American people utterly clueless and apathetic. George Soros is to Darth Sidious as Barack Obama is to Darth Vader over our hijacked Democratic Republic called America.”
Obama’s Big Oil Scandal with Socialism, Soros and Organized Crime Part 2
Obama’s Big Oil Scandal with Socialism, Soros and Organized Crime Part 3
Former IRS Chief’s Wife Works for Leftist Campaign Finance Reform Group
On Friday, reports broke that Former IRS chief Doug Shulman’s wife works with a liberal lobbying group, Public Campaign, where she is the senior program advisor. Public Campaign is an “organization dedicated to sweeping campaign reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of big special interest money in American politics.”
The goal of Public Campaign is to target political groups like the conservative non-profits at issue in the IRS scandal. The Campaign says it “is laying the foundation for reform by working with a broad range of organizations, including local community groups, around the country that are fighting for change and national organizations whose members are not fairly represented under the current campaign finance system.”
CEO of Public Campaign Nick Nyhart has offered words of support for the IRS’ targeting: “There are legitimate questions to be asked about political groups that are hiding behind a 501(c)4 status. It’s unfortunate a few bad apples at the IRS will make it harder for those questions to be asked without claims of bias.”
Public Campaign gets its cash from labor unions like AFL-CIO, AFSCME, SEIU, and Move On.
George Soros Gives $1 Million To Barack Obama Super PAC
The Huffington Post | By Paul Blumenthal
The Democrats heavy-hitters are finally coming out of the dugout to play ball in the brave new world of unlimited contributions and super PACs.
A spokesperson for Priorities USA Action, the super PAC backing President Barack Obama’s reelection, confirmed to The Huffington Post Thursday that billionaire investor George Soros has committed $1 million to the PAC. A spokesman for House Majority PAC also confirmed to HuffPost that Soros had given a combined $500,000 to House Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC in September.
The New York Times’ Nick Confessore was first to publish the news about the Soros donations. According to Confessore, Soros’ political adviser Michael Vachon announced the contributions at a meeting of the liberal donor group, Democracy Alliance where former President Bill Clinton, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) were urging donors — most of whom have refused until now — to give to super PACs. Aside from the Soros donations, another $10 million was promised by donors attending the meeting.
Confessore writes that Soros, who did not attend the meeting, sent an email to Democracy Alliance members explaining his contributions:
“I fully support the re-election of President Obama,” Mr. Soros said in the email. He had not contributed until now, he wrote, because he opposed the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, which paved the way for super PACs and unlimited money in politics. But since then, Mr. Soros wrote, he had become “appalled by the Romney campaign which is openly soliciting the money of the rich to starve the state of the money it needs to provide social services.”
It’s a sharp contrast to where Soros stood shortly after the 2010 midterm elections, when he expressed criticism of the Obama administration before a group of donors at a private meeting and suggested they pledge their money elsewhere.
Soros already has given $1.275 million to super PACs, the majority of which went to the Democratic opposition research hub American Bridge. His announced contributions this election still come nowhere near the amount that he gave to try to unseat President George W. Bush in 2004. Soros donated more than $30 million in that election — a record sum until international casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson dropped more than $70 million this year into a host of super PACs and non-disclosing non-profits.
George Soros: His Influence on the Media and the IRS Scandal
Soros’ Hand in the IRS Scandal
By Russ Jones
New details regarding the IRS scandal that found the nation’s top tax office intentionally targeting conservative groups are surfacing. Like, for example, the fact that George Soros-funded organizations sent letters encouraging the IRS to investigate conservative organizations.
According to findings reported by the Media Research Center (MRC), Soros gave $6.1 million to liberal groups who urged the Internal Revenue Service to investigate conservative non-profit organizations, including various tea party and Christian groups.
Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture for MRC, says the scandal could be traced to a series of letters that two liberal groups — Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Democracy 21 — sent to the IRS in 2010 and 2011 asking for an “investigation” of political consultant Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS.
“What they need to focus on is this timeline,” Gainor suggests. “We actually carry the timeline here, and the timeline is when these lefty operations sent their letters to the IRS and what the IRS did soon after.”
Pro Publica,The Huffington Post and Mother Jones were just a few of the accomplices that helped instigate IRS investigations. But as of 2010, Pro Publica received a two-year contribution of $125,000 each year from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
“It is a who’s who of far-left organizations,” the MRC spokesman offers. “Remember — this is George Soros, who has given $8.5 billion to charity. Of that … that we could track, $550 million has gone to liberal operations here in the United States.”
Applications of nine organizations applying for tax-exempt status that had yet to be approved were sent to Pro Publica. Unapproved applications are not supposed to be made public.
Soros Gave $6.1 Million to Groups Linked to Pressure on IRS to Target Conservative Nonprofits
By Mike Ciandella (CNS News), May 15, 2013 •
As IRS efforts targeting politically-conservative groups gained momentum, George Soros-funded liberal groups repeatedly called on the IRS to investigate conservative nonprofit organizations.
While the first reported instances of extra IRS scrutiny for conservative groups began in Cincinnati in March of 2010, the attacks began to pick up steam on a national level soon after Soros-funded groups began firing off letters to the IRS in October of that year – following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.
The talking points of these groups then bounced around a carefully created progressive “echo chamber,” until they eventually made their way into established media outlets. Key IRS policy changes about how it investigated conservative groups took place soon after it received three separate letters sent by Soros-funded liberal organizations.
Several Soros-funded groups including the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones and Alternet have worked to pressure the IRS to target conservative nonprofit groups. The subsequent IRS investigation flagged more than 100 tea party-related applications for higher scrutiny, including applications that included the words “Tea Party” and “patriot.”
The IRS scandal can be traced back to a series of letters that the liberal groups Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Democracy 21 sent to the IRS back in 2010 and 2011. Both groups were funded by George’s Soros’s Open Society Foundations. The CLC received $677,000 and Democracy 21 got $365,000 from the Soros-backed foundation, according to the Foundation’s 990 tax forms.
The letters specifically targeted conservative Super PACs like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, asking the IRS to scrutinize them more thoroughly to determine whether or not they should retain their tax-exempt status.
On Oct. 5, 2010, when the first letter was sent to the IRS, calling specifically for the agency to “investigate” Crossroads GPS. The letter claimed Crossroads was “impermissibly using its tax status to spend tens of millions of dollars in the 2010 congressional races while hiding the donors funding these expenditures from the American people.” Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer wrote a blog post for the liberal Huffington Post to promote it, and the effort to get the media to notice the anti-conservative campaign began.
On June 27, 2011, a second letter by the CLC and Democracy 21 complained about enforcement of 501(c)(4) tax regulations, asking “that the IRS issue new regulations that better enforce the law.” Two days later, an IRS senior agency official was briefed on a new policy targeting groups which “criticize how the country is being run,” according to a Washington Post story. According to the Post, this policy was later revised.
A third letter by the CLC and Democracy 21, on Sept 28, 2011, got media traction. The letter showed the escalation of the left’s complaint about 501(c)(4) groups. It challenged “the eligibility of four organizations engaged in campaign activity to be treated as 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations.” The four organizations included Crossroads GPS, Priorities USA, American Action Network and Americans Elect.
The Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity ($2,716,328) published a “study” on 501(c)(4) groups, on October 31, which drew heavily from, and referenced, the CLC and Democracy 21. The Center for Public Integrity has strong media connections and boasts an advisory board that includes Ben Sherwood, president of ABC News, and Michele Norris, an NPR host, as well as a board of directors with such prominent names as Huffington Post CEO Arianna Huffington, Steve Kroft of CBS News’s 60 Minutes and Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist).
This study then led to a Mother Jones article about a month later, on November 18, which was reposted on the left-wing blog Alternet on November 21. By December of 2011, the topic had been picked up in a New York Times editorial, and then began receiving other media coverage. That editorial called for “the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on the secret political money already flooding the 2012 campaign from partisan operatives ludicrously claiming to be ‘social welfare’ activists.”
On Jan. 15, 2012, the IRS targeted groups focused on limiting government or educating people about the Constitution and Bill of Rights
Alternet and Mother Jones are both members of The Media Consortium, which is designed to do exactly what happened here. The Media Consortium was created to be a progressive “echo chamber,” where 63 separate left-wing media outlets can network and share ideas, as well as cross-promote stories. Other members of the Consortium include such liberal outlets as The Nation,Democracy Now! and The American Prospect. The consortium has also received $675,000 in Soros funds since 2000. Alternet ($285,000) and Mother Jones ($485,000) have both also received individual funding from Soros’s Open Society Foundations.
This isn’t the only time the IRS has targeted conservative groups recently, nor is it the only connection between the IRS and Soros-funded groups. The IRS gave the left-wing journalism site ProPublica the applications for nine conservative groups pending tax-exempt status.
The IRS also released the confidential donor lists of the National Organization for Marriage to the liberal Human Rights Campaign. Both the Human Rights Campaign ($2,716,328) and ProPublica ($300,000) are also Soros-funded. Despite its blatant liberal leanings, ProPublica boasts a staff of well-known journalists, including veterans of The New York Times and The Wall Street journal, as well as of liberal operations like the Center for American Progress and The Nation, and has even won two Pulitzer Prizes.
Timeline Shows Influence of Soros-Funded Groups:
March 1-17, 2010: First ten reported cases of targeting by the IRS against groups that had ties to the “tea party or similar organizations.”
Sept. 16, 2010: TIME article “The New GOP Money Stampede” quotes Wertheimer;
Sept. 23, 2010: DISCLOSE act, a campaign finance disclosure act specifically targeting a Tea Party group, in the writing of which the CLC participated, fails in the Senate;
Sept. 28, 2010: Democrat Senator Max Baucus writes a letter to the IRS, citing the TIME article;
Oct. 5, 2010: Democracy 21 and Campaign Legal Center petition IRS, Wertheimer writes HuffPo article;
Oct. 7, 2010: Legal brief from HoltzmanVogel PLLC against the Democracy 21 petition;
Oct. 14, 2010: Dick Durbin asks IRS to investigate American Crossroads, HuffPo coverage;
June 27, 2011: Second petition to the IRS by CLC and Democracy 21;
June 29, 2011: IRS senior agency official Lois Lerner briefed on efforts to target groups which “criticize how the country is being run”;
Sept. 28, 2011: CLC and Democracy 21 petition IRS again, this time about four conservative groups;
Oct. 31, 2011: CPI “investigation”;
Nov. 18, 2011: Mother Jones article;
Nov. 21, 2011: Alternet repost of Mother Jones Article;
Dec. 29, 2011: New York Times oped;
Jan. 15, 2012: IRS targeted groups focusing on limiting government or educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights;
February 2012: First articles promoting this issue appear in New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times.
IRS Chain of Command Suggests Scandal Not Limited to ‘Low-Level Employees’
By MARK HEMINGWAY
After the IRS revealed it had wrongly targeted hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups, the agency claimed that the misconduct was limited to “low-level employees” in its Cincinnati office. Yesterday, the attorney for Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS’s tax-exempt organizations division, told the House Oversight Committee she would invoke her Fifth Amendment rights, making that explanation much less credible.
Now the local Cincinnati Fox affiliate, FOX19, has done some digging and uncovered information suggesting that top officials at the IRS weren’t too far removed from the six low-level employees identified as making unjustified inquiries. Fox19 has not only identified all six IRS agents in question, it turns out that they all have only one supervisor in common:
When an application for tax exempt status comes into the IRS, agents have 270 days to work through that application. If the application is not processed within those 270 days it automatically triggers flags in the system. When that happens, individual agents are required to input a status update on that individual case once a month, every month until the case is resolved. …
So who in the chain of command would have received all these flags? The answer, according to the IRS directory, one woman in Cincinnati, Cindy Thomas, the Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Division. Because all six of our IRS workers have different individual and territory managers, Cindy Thomas is one manager they all have common.
Cindy Thomas’s name is significant, because Thomas is the woman who leaked nine tax documents to the journalism outlet ProPublica last year. The leaking of pending tax documents is a clear violation of the law. After having uncovered the nature of Thomas’s involvement, FOX19 looks at her place in the IRS chain of command:
Former Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller… retires
Joseph Grant, Commissioner of Tax Exempt and Government Entities… retires.
Lois Lerner, Head of Exempt Organization…says she will invoke her 5th amendment right to not incriminate herself when called before Congress on Wednesday.
Holly Paz, Director of Exempt Organizations, subpoenaed to Washington to be interviewed by members of Congress.
All of this IRS leadership, in Washington D.C.
Then one level down is Cindy Thomas, the highest ranking employee in Cincinnati in this Tax Exempt and Government Entities Department that no one in Congress is talking to… yet.
Scandal Watch: New evidence makes it clear that the Internal Revenue Service campaign against conservatives wasn’t the result of two “rogue” agents, but was directed from higher up. The question is, how high up?
The claim that a couple of workers in the bowels of an IRS office in Cincinnati managed to block tax-exempt applications from conservative groups for more than two years, while subjecting them to outrageous, intrusive and improper requests for information, started falling apart days ago.
Last weekend, the Washington Post quoted a staffer saying that “everything comes from the top” at the IRS.
As Colleen Kelley, president of the union that represents IRS agents, told the Associated Press, “No processes or procedures or anything like that would ever be done just by frontline employees without any management involvement.”
And the New York Times reported that IRS accountants got a “directive from their manager” in early 2010 to “be on the lookout” for Tea Party-type groups.
This week, NBC News quoted a former manager of that Cincinnati office who explained how various internal checks and balances would have prevented workers from carrying out such a scheme on their own.
And Cincinnati’s Fox 19 News, which has done more solid reporting on this story than most of the major news outlets, looks to have put the final nail in the “rogue agent” story.
The local news station found that there were six agents — not two as former IRS head Steven Miller insisted just last week — who worked on these tax-exempt applications. These agents, Fox 19 learned, all had different direct managers, who in turn had different territory managers.
That means any directive applying to all these workers would had to have come from at least three levels up the management chain.
That manager turns out to be Cindy Thomas — who the IRS says oversees “exempt organization determinations” nationwide. She also happens to be the same person who ProPublica said signed off on releasing nine confidential tax-exempt applications from conservative groups to that liberal-leaning news website.
So if Thomas ordered the targeting, why? And if someone told her to get it done, who was that?
Fox 19 also learned all these managers would have known that Tea Party applications were being blocked long ago. IRS agents must handle tax-exempt applications within 270 days, after which the system automatically sends out an alert, making the agent provide a status update each month until the case is resolved.
Since the IRS started blocking Tea Party-type applications in April 2010 and didn’t approve a single one for more than two years, “thousands of red flags would have been generated.” Given the 270-day schedule, the first alerts would have hit back in December 2010.
Given all this, it’s not surprising that one top IRS official is now pleading the Fifth, and that the IRS is stonewalling congressional requests for communications relating to the targeting, including crucial emails.
Every new tidbit of information only makes the scandal look worse.
Yesterday I asked in this space, among other questions about the IRS scandal, this:
What was the subject of the Obama-Kelley March 31, 2010 meeting?
I received the following response to my question from the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) — the union for IRS employees headed by ex-14 year agent Colleen Kelley. The response came from union spokesperson Dina Long. It reads, in its entirety, this:
Statement of NTEU
On March 31, 2010, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley attended the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility at the Old Executive Office Building. The forum was attended by approximately 200 attendees including business leaders, workers, policy experts and labor representatives discussing telework and worklife balance issues. Attendees were broken into five groups to discuss workplace issues. The president made opening remarks. President Kelley did not have any direct contact with the president or the first lady. President Kelley has never discussed the tea party with the president.
Below is a description of the March 2010 forum from the White House web site:
On March 31, 2010, President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and the White House Council on Women and Girls hosted the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility. The Forum brought together small business owners, corporate leaders, workers, policy experts, and labor leaders to explore the importance of creating workplace practices that allow America’s working men and women to meet the demands of their jobs without sacrificing the needs of their families. Building on the momentum coming out of that forum, the Administration is hosting follow-up forums around the country and encourages others to convene events in their communities to engage in dialogue and take action on this important issue.”
Sounds reasonable, yes?
Read again. Let’s see how the Washington game is played.
Over here, in a story by the Daily Caller’s Caroline May, the NTEU responded to Ms. May with the exact same statement that was sent to me.
With one difference. This interesting sentence:
President Kelley has never discussed the tea party with the president.
The folks over at the Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson’s site, are no dummies. If that sentence had been included in the otherwise identical response they received from the NTEU, they would have reported it.
So why was that one particular sentence tacked on to the otherwise identical statement from the NTEU? In a response to me?
Because in fact it is an answer — a disturbingly partial answer — to but one question of eight questions that I asked of Ms. Kelley. Let me share with you the exact email I sent to the NTEU for Colleen Kelley:
US News reports today the March 31, 2010 meeting mentioned in the article was a ” ‘Workplace Flexibility Forum,’ a March 2010 event that was about the state of flexible work arrangements.” I realize there are a number of questions here, but under the circumstances of this IRS controversy I want to make sure that Ms. Kelley has the opportunity to answer. I will be happy to publish her answers verbatim in The American Spectator.
Thanks,
Jeff Lord
The American Spectator
US News mentions that it has received no comment from Ms. Kelley. I would like to get a response from Ms. Kelley to the following questions:
• Did the President himself ever, at any time, discuss the Tea Party with Ms. Kelley?
• Did the President ever communicate his thoughts on the Tea Party to Kelley – in any fashion other than a face-to-face conversation such as e-mail, text or by phone?
• Was the Tea Party or any other group opposing the President’s agenda discussed at the March 31st meeting, or before or after that meeting?
• Will Ms. Kelley be asking the White House to release any e-mails, text or phone records that detail Kelley’s contacts with not only Mr. Obama but his staff? Will Ms. Kelley release any of these communications that are in the files of NTEU?
• Will Ms. Kelley ask the IRS to release all e-mail, text or phone records between Kelley or any other leader of the NTEU with IRS employees? With the Oversight Board? IRS employees are federal employees paid with taxpayer dollars.
• Has Ms. Kelley ever been given access to IRS records of Tea Party cases? Has she ever discussed the Tea Party or any conservative organization with IRS employees at any level?
• What did Ms. Kelley discuss with the President or any White House or government official at the December 3, 2009 White House Christmas Party that she attended?
• What role did Executive Order 13522 play in the IRS investigations of the Tea Party and all these other conservative groups?
That would be eight questions for “President Kelley,” as she was called in the NTEU response.
The very first question was:
Did the President himself ever, at any time, discuss the Tea Party with Ms. Kelley?
To which the NTEU responded by simply tacking on the following single sentence to their boilerplate reply to the media:
President Kelley has never discussed the tea party with the president.
But the rest of it? The answers to questions two through eight?
Silence.
Silence from the official NTEU spokesperson Dina Long. Silence from Colleen Kelley herself.
There was no “I’ll get back to you further.” There was no “Give us some time, what’s your deadline?” There was just….silence.
Note as well that when contacted by the Washington Post last week, the NTEU’s Kelley was, in the words of the Post headline, “mum.” Wrote the Post:
So far, the National Treasury Employees Union, which generally is not shy with public comment, has next to nothing to say about that or anything else.
NTEU is working to get the facts but does not have any specifics at this time. Moreover, IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases. We cannot comment further at this time,” NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said via e-mail.
A call to the NTEU office in Cincinnati resulted in a similar response: “We’ve been directed by national office. We have no comment.”
So what do we have here?
This.
A powerful labor union — the union that represents IRS employees — is displaying a pattern of refusing to answer questions. Other than the solitary statement to The American Spectator that “President Kelley has never discussed the tea party with the president.”
Beyond a generic, boilerplate answer to media inquiries, there is silence.
No answers about releasing union e-mails or phone records to or from the White House, the IRS or the IRS Oversight Board (on which board sits a former NTEU president) and no answers on all the rest.
But over here at the Washington Post, we have, buried in a story about the Cincinnati office of the IRS, this key phrase:
“Everything comes from the top. We don’t have any authority to make those decisions without someone signing off on them. There has to be a directive.”
Got that?
“Everything comes from the top.”
The top is where Colleen Kelley, the head of all those unionized IRS workers in Cincinnati, operates.
The top is the White House, the IRS offices in Washington, D.C., and the IRS Oversight Board.
The top is what makes it possible for the IRS union to have the run of the IRS, to get an Executive Order (# 13522) from the President to “allow employee and unions to have pre-decisional involvement in all workplace matters….”
The top is where Colleen Kelley goes to a White House Christmas party as the guest of President and Mrs. Obama — six days before that Executive Order 13522 is issued.
The top is where Colleen Kelley can be the head of the IRS union that gets its dues, its very survival money, from employees being paid by taxpayer dollars — and not have to answer questions about the details of her “collaboration” with the White House, the Obama-run IRS and the IRS Oversight Board.
And being at the top is what gives Ms. Kelley the belief that she can head an IRS public employees union — and do the old Nixon stonewall.
She isn’t the only one at the top busy stonewalling right now.
And as with Watergate, the place to get to the bottom of the top is Congress.
Where a new version of an old question should be asked:
What did the IRS union president know — and when did she know it?
“My question is who is going to jail?” — House Speaker John Boehner on the IRS Scandal
The President couldn’t even bring himself to breathe a word of the truth.
He could fire some hapless Acting Commissioner, but last night Mr. Obama never came close to discussing that which must never be discussed.
The IRS?
It’s about a union: the National Treasury Employees Union. The NTEU. A left-wing union representing 150,000 employees in 31 separate government agencies, including the IRS. A union that not only endorsed President Obama for election and re-election, but a union whose current president, Colleen Kelly, was a 14-year IRS agent and now is both union president and Obama administration appointee (of which more in a moment).
It’s about 94% of NTEU union contributions going to Democrats in the Senate and House in 2012 — candidates who campaigned as vociferous opponents of the Tea Party.
And the recently released report from the Treasury Inspector General? You will not find a single reference to the NTEU. Whose members are both player and referee in the exploding controversy over the IRS targeting of conservative groups.
Which raises the obvious question: how many NTEU members were involved in the writing of the Inspector General’s report?
Even more to the point, what contact — what coordination — has the Obama White House had with their allies in the NTEU leadership as both the White House and the NTEU race to get on top of a scandal that is rapidly engulfing both?
Did I mention that the NTEU has no comment on all of this? And that when President Obama went in front of cameras to make his statement on the IRS scandal — he never once mentioned his very powerful union buddies that have the run of the IRS? Right down to the control of who gets a Blackberry? Literally.
Let’s first see how the IRS/NTEU game with the Tea Party and conservatives is played, shall we?
In the 2012 election cycle, the IRS union gave its money this way:
For the U.S. Senate: Total to Democrats: $156,750 Total to Republicans: $1,000
For the U.S. House: Total to Democrats: $391,062 Total to Republicans: $23,000
And the candidates on the receiving end of those IRS employee dollars? Yes indeed. They were candidates who were running flat out against the Tea Party, depicting Tea Party-supported candidates as dangerous, extremists, and crazies. Exhibiting exactly the anti-Tea Party antipathy on the campaign trail that has been revealed to be permeating the IRS.
No wonder. These Senate and House races were fueled in part by money donated by IRS employees.
Let’s take a look at specific races where the IRS employee money was involved.
• Wisconsin: One of those IRS employee-backed Senate candidates was Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, who in fact won her Senate race over ex-Republican Governor Tommy Thompson.
The NTEU, the union representing IRS employees, gave Baldwin $8,500. And what was Baldwin’s view of the Tea Party? If you check over here at the Midwest Values PAC, a left-wing political action committee set up by liberal Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, you will find this headline:
National Memo: Tammy Baldwin Runs Straight At The Tea Party
The story begins this way, and I have put the key sentence in bold print:
Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin wants to be the first openly gay candidate elected to the United States Senate. In an exclusive interview with The National Memo over the weekend, she made clear how she means to go about doing it: running straight at the Tea Party.
• Indiana: In the Indiana Senate race, the Democrats’ candidate was Joe Donnelly, who used his $5,000 contribution to run a winning anti-Tea Party race against Republican Richard Mourdock. Donnelly’s campaign website, presumably financed in part with the money contributed by IRS employees, has this headline attacking the Tea Party:
FACT CHECK: Mourdock Trying to Change Subject from Extreme TEA Party Views
The text of the Donnelly press release begins this way, with a direct attack on the Tea Party:
Indianapolis, Ind.—Today, Joe Donnelly’s campaign responded to Richard Mourdock’s latest ad trying to change the subject from his pattern of extreme TEA Party views.
“Hoosier voters are rejecting Richard Mourdock’s pattern of TEA Party extreme positions, so he is desperate to change the subject,” said Paul Tencher, campaign manager. “In fact, Indiana voters are responding to Joe’s message of working with both parties to get things done for middle class families. The only person playing politics in this race is Mr. Mourdock, as he tries to distract voters from his extreme views that are out of the mainstream.”
• Missouri: Over in the Missouri Senate race between Democrat Claire McCaskill and Republican Todd Akin, the IRS employee money — in the form of a $10,000 contribution to McCaskill — was used by the McCaskill campaign to help send this e-mail to supporters that bluntly attacked the Tea Party as “dangerous”:
Akin’s Rap Sheet Makes It Clear: Tea Party Congressman’s Outside Of The Mainstream Views, Dangerous Policies Are Wrong for Missouri, From his record to his rhetoric, everything about Todd Akin’s Tea Party policies are outside of the mainstream and dangerous for Missouri families.
When Missouri Republicans nominated him last night, they pinned their Senate hopes on a far right, Tea Party Congressman whose candidacy diminishes the party’s prospects for November.
And over in House races? At the very top of the high dollar list were two vividly anti-Tea Party candidates who each received a $10,000 contribution of IRS employee dollars.
• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: Pelosi’s strategy was made plain in this interview with liberal columnist Eleanor Clift of the Daily Beast:
Stung by the debt-deal loss, the minority leader plans to get Democrats back on their jobs message and hammer Tea Party lawmakers as extremists who want to destroy government.
• House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer: Hoyer famously attacked the Tea Party this way, as seen with this headline:
Hoyer: Tea Party People Come From Unhappy Families
“There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise.My presumption is they have unhappy families.”
Understanding all of this — that IRS employees themselves are paying, through their union the NTEU, for the election of anti-Tea Party candidates — the absence of any mention whatsoever of the connection between the IRS and the NTEU puts the IG report in a very different light.
For example.
The IG report says — and I will bold print the key phrases — the following:
The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary potentially involving information requests to be issued.
Although the processing of some applications with potential significant political campaign
intervention was started soon after receipt, no work was completed on the majority of these
applications for 13 months. This was due to delays in receiving assistance from the Exempt Organizations function Headquarters office. For the 296 total political campaign intervention applications TIGTA reviewed as of December 17, 2012, 108 had been approved, 28 were withdrawn by the applicant, none had been denied, and 160 were open from 206 to1,138 calendar days (some for more than three years and crossing two election cycles).
More than 20 months after the initial case was identified, processing the cases began in earnest. ….IRS officials stated that any donor information received in response to a request from its Determinations Unit was later destroyed.
Just in these opening statements of the IG report there is one very significant and glaring omission.
Where is the NTEU?
Note the phrases in bold print:
“The IRS”
“identified for review Tea Party and other organizations”
“Ineffective management”
“the processing”
“delays in receiving assistance from”
“approved”
“IRS officials stated”
“request from its Determinations Unit”
In each and every case these phrases identify actions taken by people — by IRS employees. IRS employees are members of the NTEU. The NTEU that is using money from these very same IRS employees to fund the campaigns of anti-Tea Party candidates like Baldwin, Donnelly, McCaskill, Pelosi and Hoyer. Not to mention all the rest of the Democrats who got a piece of the IRS employee money action.
As one would suspect, given the enormous clout of the liberal IRS union, it’s all about the politics. Liberal politics and the financing of the liberal welfare state. A federal version, if you will, of the recent famous struggle between Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and state employee unions.
How powerful is the NTEU within the IRS?
Look no further than this IG report from back in January of this year that discusses the role the union has inside the IRS bureaucracy in the minutia of which IRS employees get to carry a Blackberry. The report notes:
In June 2010, the IRS and the NTEU signed an agreement to standardize IRS policy regarding which IRS employees would be allowed (referred to as a “profiled” position in the agreement) to receive certain information technology equipment, including aircards and BlackBerry® smartphones.
Notice: the NTEU, which gave 94% of its campaign money to anti-Tea Party candidates, has the clout within the IRS to demand a say in who can and cannot carry a Blackberry and receive other high tech communications equipment. The report goes on to say:
Initially, IRS policy limited the assignment of BlackBerry® smartphones to executives and senior/departmental managers. However, the agreement between the IRS and the NTEU expanded availability to employees below the executive and senior/departmental level.
This doesn’t even mention the power the NTEU has inside the IRS to decide everything from promotion rules to size of employee workspaces and on and on.
So the obvious.
If you are working in the IRS, and you are an NTEU member, and you know your union leadership is funneling your union dues to anti-Tea Party candidates, and your union has so much raw power within the IRS that they even control whether you, an IRS employee, can get even such mundane tech gear as a Blackberry — what attitude are you going to display as you review Tea Party applications that must, by law, come in to the IRS for approval?
You already know what to do. And inside the IRS, that’s exactly what was done. The Tea Party, in the vernacular, was screwed. By IRS bureaucrats whose union money is being used to attack the Tea Party. Of course these IRS employees know what to do — most probably without even being asked. There is no need to ask. And if they don’t follow the union program — and want a Blackberry — tough luck.
And what of the NTEU president, Ms. Kelly? The one-time IRS agent also doubles as an Obama appointee (announced here by the Obama White House) to the Federal Salary Council. Identified in the Washington Post as:
…a panel obscure to most Washingtonians but one that performs a vital role in recommending raises for most federal employees.
Got that? The President of the NTEU — a union that has gone out of its way to use IRS employee money to defeat the Tea Party — has a “vital role in recommending raises for most federal employees” — which includes, of course, IRS employees.
As if IRS employees don’t have enough incentive to go after the Tea Party, their anti-Tea Party president has a say in whether they get not just a Blackberry but a raise as well.
Can you say: “conflict of interest”?
Let’s stop here and take a look at a famous incident with the IRS that has made news in the last few days: the Articles of Impeachment filed against President Richard Nixon.
By now, all manner of people have been reminded that President Nixon’s resignation was prompted by the House Judiciary Committee passing Articles of Impeachment, with Article 2, Section One specifically saying:
He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.
But there’s something missing in this recall of the tale of Nixon and the IRS.
In the early 1970s, President Nixon bypassed Congress and postponed salary increases for General Schedule federal employees. This included, of course, the IRS. The NTEU was furious with Nixon and took the President to court in a case called NTEU v. Nixon. The union won, and the federal government was forced to pay $533 million in back pay to federal employees.
So far, so normal in the world of Washington and relationships between a president and federal employees. Right?
Wrong.
Two years later, in 1974, the year the Watergate scandal reached high tide and Nixon was forced to resign, his abuse of the IRS cited in Article 2 as one of the reasons, there was another story out there involving the IRS and Richard Nixon.
As the liberal drive to get Nixon increased to the force of a political hurricane, reporter Jack White of Rhode Island’s Providence Journal-Evening Bulletin received an illegal leak — from the IRS. Specifically, an illegal leak from someone inside the IRS — an IRS employee — that leaked Richard Nixon’s 1970 and 1971 taxes. There was an immediate uproar — not about the leak or the identity of the leaker — but over the accusation that Nixon had underpaid his taxes. The House Judiciary Committee took the information and ran with it, opening an entire line of inquiry about Nixon’s tax deductions. So public was this it resulted in Nixon famously answering a question at a press conference this way:
People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.
And while people are remembering Nixon in the current furor over the IRS because of his own abuse of the IRS and Article 2, there was another Article —Article 4 — that was based on the leaked information from the still-unknown IRS employee to reporter Jack White. Read Article 4:
He knowingly and fraudulently failed to report certain income and claimed deductions in the year 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1972 on his Federal income tax returns which were not authorized by law, including deductions for a gift of papers to the United States valued at approximately $576,000.
Nixon vigorously disputed this, of course. But it didn’t matter. He was out the door, forced to resign. A leak from the IRS to the media about Nixon’s taxes one big no-never-mind.
And what happened to reporter Jack White? The man who received the illegal leak of Nixon’s tax returns — a violation of law — and published them?
Jack White was rewarded by his liberal media peers with the 1974 Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for National Reporting.
So.
What’s really going on with the IRS?
The Internal Revenue Service , with all of its mighty taxing and police powers, is in the hands of anti-Tea Party, anti-conservative, political activists. Liberal political activists from the NTEU masquerading as neutral career bureaucrats. The money of IRS employees used to fuel the National Treasury Employees Union’s open and expensive assault on the Tea Party and conservatives.
And comment on all this from the NTEU? Here’s this from the Washington Post:
So far, the National Treasury Employees Union, which generally is not shy with public comment, has next to nothing to say about that or anything else.
“NTEU is working to get the facts but does not have any specifics at this time. Moreover, IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases. We cannot comment further at this time,” NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said via e-mail.
A call to the NTEU office in Cincinnati resulted in a similar response: “We’ve been directed by national office. We have no comment.”
No comment? No wonder.
“IRS employees are not permitted to discuss taxpayer cases”??!! What a joke.
Here in the Wall Street Journal is author James Bovard with a short history of the political manipulation of the IRS by various presidents, and Bovard notes that: “With the current IRS scandal, we may have seen only the tip of the iceberg.”
Aside from Nixon they include FDR, JFK, and Bill Clinton. The difference is the latter three weren’t forced to resign because of it — and Clinton’s abuse of the IRS was not include in the Articles of Impeachment that focused on his lying to a grand jury over that liberal favorite — sexual harassment.
The real question now?
With the IRS assuming serious police powers of Obamacare, in effect the members of one left-wing labor union will have access to the private health care records of every single American.
And notes the Wall Street Journal, again the bold print for emphasis:
This March the IRS Inspector General reiterated that ObamaCare’s 47 major changes to the revenue code “represent the largest set of tax law changes the IRS has had to implement in more than 20 years.” Thus the IRS is playing Thelma to the Health and Human Service Department’s Louise. The tax agency has requested funding for 1,954 full-time equivalent employees for its Affordable Care Act office in 2014.
Got that? The real meaning here is that the NTEU is asking for 1,954 more union members whose union dues will be put to use to “hammer the Tea Party” in the words of Nancy Pelosi.
As James Taranto also noted over in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:
The Internal Revenue Service last year supplied a left-leaning nonprofit charity with confidential information about conservative organizations, which the charity disseminated to the public, ProPublica reported yesterday.
Once again, IRS employees — they of the anti-Tea Party union NTEU — were caught leaking private information.
Did I mention they were targeting Billy Graham — 95 year old Billy Graham??!!! Why? Because the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was urging “voters to back ‘candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles….’”
You know what terrifies every liberal in America right now? You want to know the real reason President Obama abruptly felt the need to go on national television last night and fire the Acting Commissioner of the IRS last night as Americans were having their dinner?
The distinct possibility that the IRS and the whole confection of Big Government liberalism built around the federal taxing power is about to implode in scandal.
Big scandal. The kind of scandal that will make Watergate look like a piker.
And the irony?
That in seeking to destroy the credibility of the Tea Party, the Obama administration and its allies have destroyed not just the credibility of the IRS and one very seriously powerful union.
IRS’s Shulman had more public White House visits than any Cabinet member
Publicly released records show that embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, more recorded visits than even the most trusted members of the president’s Cabinet.
Obama officials who’ve visited the White House (As prepared by The Daily Caller)
Shulman’s extensive access to the White House first came to light during his testimony last week before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Shulman gave assorted answers when asked why he had visited the White House 118 times during the period that the IRS was targeting tea party and conservative nonprofits for extra scrutiny and delays on their tax-exempt applications.
By contrast, Shulman’s predecessor Mark Everson only visited the White House once during four years of service in the George W. Bush administration and compared the IRS’s remoteness from the president to “Siberia.” But the scope of Shulman’s White House visits — which strongly suggests coordination by White House officials in the campaign against the president’s political opponents — is even more striking in comparison to the publicly recorded access of Cabinet members.
An analysis by The Daily Caller of the White House’s public “visitor access records” showed that every current and former member of President Obama’s Cabinet would have had to rack up at least 60 more public visits to the president’s home to catch up with “Douglas Shulman.”
The visitor logs do not give a complete picture of White House access. Some high-level officials get cleared for access and do not have to sign in during visits. A Washington Post database of visitor log records cautions, “The log may include some scheduled visits that did not take place and exclude visits by members of Congress, top officials and others who are not required to sign in at security gates.”
The White House press office declined to comment on which visits by high-ranking officials do and do not get recorded in the visitor log, but it is probable that the vast majority of visits by major Cabinet members do not end up in the public record.
Nevertheless, many visits by current and former Cabinet members are in the logs, and the record depicts an IRS chief uniquely at home in the White House.
Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama’s friend and loyal lieutenant, logged 62 publicly known White House visits, not even half as many as Shulman’s 157.
Former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, to whom Shulman reported, clocked in at just 48 publicly known visits.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earned a cool 43 public visits, and current Secretary of State John Kerry logged 49 known White House visits in the same timeframe, when he was still a U.S. senator.
Shulman has more recorded visits to the White House than HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (48), DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (34), Education Secretary Arne Duncan (31), former Energy Secretary Steven Chu (22) and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates (17) combined.
The Daily Caller’s analysis includes current, former and presently-nominated members of Obama’s Cabinet.
After Shulman, Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank (86), Asst. Attorney General Thomas Perez (83) and Penny Pritzker (76) — Obama’s nominee for Commerce Secretary — have the most publicly known White House visits.
Pro-Israel groups felt wrath of Obama IRS, WFB investigation reveals
BY: Alana Goodman
A Washington Free Beacon investigation has identified at least five pro-Israel organizations that have been audited by the IRS in the wake of a coordinated campaign by White House-allied activist groups in 2009 and 2010.
These organizations, some of which are too afraid of government reprisals to speak publicly, say in interviews with the Free Beacon thatthey now believe the IRS actions may have been coordinated by the Obama administration.
Many of the charities openly clashed with the Obama administration’s policy of opposing Israeli settlement construction over the so-called “Green Line,” which marks the pre-1967 boundary between Israel and the West Bank and West and East Jerusalem.
After the Obama administration took up the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as one of its most prominent foreign policy priorities in early 2009, and made a cessation of Israeli settlement construction the cornerstone of its approach, the nonprofits were subjected to a string of unflattering media reports.
White House-allied lobbying groups joined the media criticism by challenged the nonprofits’ tax-exempt status, arguing that they undercut President Barack Obama’s Middle East policies.
“Our concern at that time was that these articles weren’t just appearing by happenstance, but may have reflected an evolving policy shift in the Obama administration to scrutinize charitable giving by organizations on behalf of Jewish communities and institutions over the Green Line,” said Jerusalem-based attorney Marc Zell, who convened a private meeting of pro-Israel groups in August 2009 to discuss these concerns.
Tax-exempt charities that support Israeli settlements have been the subject of controversy for years. But the issue came to a head after Obama made opposition to settlement construction a focus of his Middle East policy in 2009 and demanded Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu halt all construction beyond the Green Line, including in the Israeli capital of Jerusalem.
While it is not illegal for these charities to contribute to groups and individuals across the Green Line, critics say that they should not receive tax-exempt status because they support communities the administration views as antagonistic to administration policy.
The media scrutiny began as early as March 26, 2009, when the Washington Post’s David Ignatius published a column questioning the groups’ tax-exempt status.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) announced the next day that it would begin a campaign of filing legal complaints with the IRS and the Treasury Department to investigate groups “allegedly raising funds for the development of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.”
ADC is closely tied to the Obama White House. The president recorded a video greeting to the group’s annual conference and sent two senior administration officials to attend.
The ADC announced in October 2009 that it had expanded its legal campaign against pro-Israel charities and was “working with a number of coalition partners, both nationally and internationally, in conducting this ongoing campaign.”
The chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority raised the issue two days later during a meeting with U.S. Consul General Daniel Rubenstein, according to a State Department cable revealed by Wikileaks.
“[Palestinian negotiator Ahmad Quraya] gave the Consul General a copy of an article by Uri Blau and Nir Hasson, published in Israeli daily Haaretz newspaper on August 17, entitled ‘American Non-profit Organization Raises Funds for Settlement,’ and asked the USG to review the situation with an eye toward eliminating organizations’ tax exempt status if they are funding settlement activity,” said the cable.
On July 5, 2010, the New York Times published its 5,000-word cover story on the groups, following up with a Room for Debate series two days later. The article quoted an unnamed senior State Department administration official calling such groups “a problem” and “unhelpful to the efforts that we’re trying to make.” The story also quoted a senior Obama Middle East adviser, Daniel Kurtzer, saying the groups “drove us crazy.”
J Street, a pro-Palestinian lobbying group that was closely aligned with the White House in 2009 and 2010, called the following week for an investigation into U.S. charities that contribute to settlements.
One pro-Israel targets was HaYovel, which was featured prominently in the New York Times article. Six months after the article was published, the IRS audited the Nashville-based charity, which sends volunteers to work in vineyards across the Green Line.
“We bookend that [New York Times] story. We were the first [group mentioned]. They really kind of focused on us,” said HaYovel’s founder Tommy Waller. “Then six months later we had an audit.”
Shari Waller, who cofounded HaYovel with her husband, said the couple received a phone call from the IRS in December 2010. She said she was not aware of anything in their tax documents that may have prompted the audit, and added that the additional scrutiny came during the group’s first five years of existence when audits tend to be rare.
“They contacted us the week of Christmas and told us they wanted to audit us, right now,” she said. “The most unusual thing to me was they contacted us at a time [that] for most people is a very hectic time, and we had just returned from Israel. To think about taking calls for an audit on the telephone—official business is usually conducted through the mail.”
Tommy Waller said he found the timing of the audit “suspicious” and believes it may have been politically motivated.
“We 100-percent support Judea and Samaria, and Jewish sovereignty in that area, and the current administration is 100 percent opposed to Jewish sovereignty in that area of Israel,” he said. “That’s why we suspected that we would have to deal with [an audit].”
Two other organizations—the American arm of an educational institution that operates across the Green Line and the American arm of a well-known Israeli charity that was mentioned in the New York Times article—say they were also audited.
Another organization that was criticized in multiple articles during 2009 and 2010 was audited last year. The organization, like many of the groups with whom the Free Beacon spoke, asked to remain anonymous out of fear of political retaliation and concern that exposure would harm fundraising efforts.
“The IRS carried out an examination of our organization, reviewing all of our accounting records, tax returns, bylaws, bank records, grant awards, etc, for the relevant period,” said a senior official of this organization.
“There was no vindictiveness in the audit itself and it was completed within a matter of months. Our feeling at the time was that this order must have come from above. The IRS seemed to be responding to a request or a complaint from higher up.”
Concerns that the IRS was targeting pro-Israel groups were first raised publicly by Z Street, a pro-Israel organization run by Lori Lowenthal Marcus.
Z Street filed a lawsuit against the IRS in 2010, alleging its application for tax-exempt status was delayed because it disagreed with the Obama administration’s Israel policy.
According to the suit, Marcus’s attorney was informed by IRS official Diane Gentry that Z Street’s “application for tax-exempt status has been at least delayed, and may be denied because of a special IRS policy in place regarding organizations in any way connected with Israel, and further that the applications of many such Israel-related organizations have been assigned to “a special unit in the D.C. office.”
Neither the IRS nor Gentry responded to a request for comment.
Marcus said Z Street has not funded anyone or any groups in the settlements. But, she added, the problems her organization faced could be related to the administration’s concerns over settlement-supporting groups.
Z Street’s application for tax-exempt status first ran into trouble with the IRS on July 19, 2010, two weeks after the lengthy New York Times article was published.
“Even if that is the case, that’s an explanation, but it’s not an answer. It’s not an adequate reason,” said Marcus. “It’s totally inappropriate.”
Zell told the Free Beacon he has not personally witnessed a shift in IRS policy since the 2009 meeting suggesting settlement-supporting nonprofits have been targeted.
However, he said it is a “yellow flag” that at least five of these organizations have been audited since 2009, considering the recent finding by the IRS inspector general that the agency targeted conservative groups.
“Now with the revelations of the IRS abuses vis-a-vis U.S. right-wing organizations, that have been published of late, there is renewed concerned that these kinds of policies, same kinds of policies and procedures, may have been targeted at these organizations [that support settlements],” he said.
Valerie B. Jarrett is a Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama. She oversees the Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs and chairs the White House Council on Women and Girls.
Prior to joining the Obama Administration, she was the Chief Executive Officer of The Habitat Company. She also served as Co-Chair of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team, and Senior Advisor to Obama’s presidential campaign.
Ms. Jarrett has held positions in both the public and private sector, including the Chairman of the Chicago Transit Board, the Commissioner of Planning and Development for the City of Chicago, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Richard M. Daley. She also practiced law with two private law firms.
Jarrett also served as a director of corporate and not for profit boards, including Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Stock Exchange, Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and Chairman of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board of Trustees.
Jarrett received her B.A. from Stanford University in 1978 and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1981.
Segment 4: Sarah Hall Ingram Deputy Commissioner of the Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division (TE/GE) Targeted Tea Party — Now In Charge of IRS Health Care Office — Mission Accomplished Got $100,000 bonuses between 2009 and 2012 — Got Obama Elected President! — Videos
NAACP’s Leader Calls The Tea Party The Taliban Wing Of American Politics
Rand Paul Discusses IRS Scandal & Enemies List on Hannity – 5/13/13
The I.R.S. Takes Aim at the Tea Party (David Keating)
The I.R.S. Abusing Americans Is Nothing New
The I.R.S. targeting of tea party groups in the United States is par for the course. It’s not the first time the agency has been used for partisan political ends. Whether or not the targeting was undertaken as a directive from the White House, the agency’s broad latitude in determining what constitutes partisan political activity is very problematic. The solutions offered by campaign finance reformers would unfortunately only give the agency more power.
Scarborough, Willie Geist Tear Into Obama Admin Over IRS Scandal ‘This Is Tyranny…’
Jon Stewart Destroys Obama Over IRS Scandal & Lack Of ‘Managerial Competence’
IRS chief: Disclosure of targeting was intentional
Lois Lerner, IRS Official: I’m Not Good At Math
IRS Scandal: Lois Lerner In her own words
Who knew what and when at the IRS?
Obama’s Enemies List 2.0
PAUL RYAN Destroys IRS Commissioner Steven Miller at House Hearing
IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office
By John Parkinson and Steven Portnoy
The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.
Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.
Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.
Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.
As the House voted to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act Thursday evening, House Speaker John Boehner expressed “serious concerns” that the IRS is empowered as the law’s chief enforcer.
“Fully repealing ObamaCare will help us build a stronger, healthier economy, and will clear the way for patient-centered reforms that lower health care costs and protect jobs,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said.
“Obamacare empowers the agency that just violated the public’s trust by secretly targeting conservative groups,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., added. “Even by Washington’s standards, that’s unacceptable.”
Sen. John Cornyn even introduced a bill, the “Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013,” which would prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury, or any delegate, including the IRS, from enforcing the Affordable Care Act.
“Now more than ever, we need to prevent the IRS from having any role in Americans’ health care,” Cornyn, R-Texas, stated. “I do not support Obamacare, and after the events of last week, I cannot support giving the IRS any more responsibility or taxpayer dollars to implement a broken law.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also reacted to the revelation late Thursday, stating the news was “stunning, just stunning.”
ABC News’ Abby D. Phillip contributed to this report.
June, 2009 –Sarah Hall Ingram, the new commissioner of the IRS TE/GE (Tax-exempt and Government Entities) division of the IRS, spoke on June 23 at Georgetown’s Continuing Legal Education program about the IRS role in nonprofit governance. In the speech, Ingram identified four general principles that she believes are essential to good nonprofit governance:
A foundational principle is that the organization should clearly understand and publicly express its mission. This helps assure that the organization provides a public benefit and does not drift away from a charitable purpose. It helps an organization avoid practices that are inconsistent with tax-exempt status.
Equally important is the principle that the organization’s board should be engaged, informed and independent. The board should have real responsibility and authority. It must, for example, be able to implement, in the life of the organization, the rules against inurement and self-dealing.
Another set of key good governance principles are those relating to the proper use and safeguarding of assets. These principles are supported by policies and practices that address executive compensation, that protect against conflicts of interest, and that support independent financial reviews.
Transparency is another key principle. I believe that board decisions should be reflected in minutes, that records supporting decisions should be retained for reasonable periods, that whistleblowers should be protected, and that each year’s Form 990 should be complete, accurate and prepared in good faith.
Ingram insisted that the IRS would not create a “one size fits all” definition of governance, but strongly reaffirmed the IRS’s role in governance issues: “Another principle I will follow is that the IRS has a clear, unambiguous role to play in governance.” While I have some doubts about the extent to which the IRS should be active in governance matters, it is hard to argue with Ingram’s view that certain core exemption issues (executive pay, other private inurement, political activity, etc.) do involve governance processes. It will be interesting to see how the IRS’s role in governance evolves under Ingram’s leadership.
IRS Announces Appointment of Sarah Hall Ingram as Chief, Appeals
IR-2006-59, April 11, 2006
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today announced that Sarah Hall Ingram has been appointed to the position of Chief, Appeals. Ingram will replace David Robison, effective May 7.
As the head of the agency’s Appeals division, Ingram will be responsible for overseeing the operations of an administrative forum for taxpayers contesting an IRS compliance action. The Appeals mission is to resolve tax disputes without litigation; it provides an independent administrative appeal process for all taxpayers.
“I’m pleased Sarah Hall Ingram will be stepping into the position of Chief, Appeals,” said IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson. “Her broad legal and technical experience will serve the IRS well as she assumes this important post.”
Since July 2004, Ingram has been serving as Deputy Commissioner of the Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division (TE/GE). Ingram began her career with the IRS in the former Tax Litigation Division in 1982. She became Employee Plans Litigation Counsel in 1987, providing litigation coordination nationwide for employee benefit cases. In 1992, Ingram became Deputy Associate Chief Counsel, Employee Benefits and Exempt Organizations (EBEO), where she served until her 1994 appointment as Associate Chief Counsel, EBEO. As part of the IRS Modernization program, Ingram was appointed in 1999 to the new position of Division Counsel/Associate Chief Counsel, TE/GE, where she was responsible for providing legal services to the TE/GE Division and its customers as well as other parts of the IRS.
Ingram received her Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1979 and her J.D. in 1982 from Georgetown University Law School. She is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.
Everson also expressed his thanks to Robison, who will retire May 6, after serving 35 years with the IRS.
“David’s service as the Chief, Appeals, for the past four years has been exemplary,” Everson said. “We wish him well in his future endeavors.”
Previously, Robison served in numerous positions involving corporate and international taxation. Last year Robison was selected by Everson to coordinate IRS support for President Bush’s Tax Reform Panel.
By Dan Keating and Darla Cameron, Published: May 15, 2013
The IRS grants tax-exempt status to 40,000 nonprofit groups per year. When the IRS began targeting conservative groups’ applications in 2011, nonprofit approvals for groups with tea party or 9-12 in their name stopped entirely. Five groups with those names had been approved in 2009 and 2010, but zero were approved in 2011. After policy reconsideration in 2012, the backlog was broken and 27 groups were approved, mostly in the second half of the year.
The slowdown was evident with other conservative-sounding groups, as well. Thirty-seven groups with the words patriot or constitution had been approved in 2009 and 2010, but only 10 were approved in 2011. Once again, the backlog was relieved in 2012 with 29 approvals.
On the other hand, groups with the word progressive in their names suffered no similar slowdown pattern. The number of approvals increased each year from 17 in 2009 to 20 in 2012. Read related article.
Republicans Expand I.R.S. Inquiry, With Eye on White House
Congressional Republicans, not resting with the Internal Revenue Service scandal, are moving to broaden the matter to an array of tax malfeasances and “intimidation tactics” they hope will ensnare the White House.
Republican charges range from clearly questionable actions to seemingly specious allegations, and they grow by the day. On Friday, lawmakers sought to tie the I.R.S. matter to the carrying out of President Obama’s health care law, which will rely heavily on the agency. Whether they succeed holds significant ramifications for Mr. Obama, who will soon know if he is dealing with a late spring thunderstorm that may soon blow over or a consuming squall that will leave lasting damage.
Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan, the usually mild-mannered chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, set the tone Friday at Congress’s first hearing on the targeting of conservative groups by the I.R.S., laying out details, from the alleged threatening of donors to conservative nonprofit groups to the leaking of confidential I.R.S. documents.
In that context, he said, the screening of Tea Party groups for special scrutiny was not the scandal itself but “just the latest example of a culture of cover-ups — and political intimidation — in this administration.”
“It seems like the truth is hidden from the American people just long enough to make it through an election,” Mr. Camp said.
Taken aback, the ranking Democrat on the committee, Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, modified his prepared remarks to warn, “If this hearing becomes essentially a bootstrap to continue the campaign of 2012 and to prepare for 2014, we will be making a very, very serious mistake.”
Republicans raised a long list of issues. Mr. Camp contended, for instance, that a White House official’s divulging of a private company’s tax status constituted “a clear intimidation tactic.” The 2010 incident involved an offhand comment by the White House economist Austan Goolsbee that Koch Industries had not paid corporate income taxes because it pays taxes through the personal income tax code. As it turned out, that was not true, but the assertion was made in a discussion of tax reform ideas, not politics.
The Republicans also criticized the publication of donors to the National Organization for Marriage, a group opposed to same-sex marriage. That donors list surfaced mysteriously in March 2012 from a whistle-blower whose identity is still unknown. The whistle-blower apparently obtained it by simply requesting it from the I.R.S.
Linkage to the health care law came through Sarah Hall Ingram, a longtime I.R.S. official who has headed the agency’s program to carry out the Affordable Care Act since December 2010. Before that, she led the I.R.S.’s tax-exempt and government-entities division, which contained the political targeting effort.
“This is an audit, and it’s helpful,” Representative Tim Griffin, Republican of Arkansas, said of the investigation of I.R.S. targeting by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, “but it’s the tip of the iceberg.”
But the inspector general made clear that effort did not reach the attention of high-level I.R.S. officials until 2011 at the earliest.
The inspector general gave Republicans some fodder Friday when he divulged that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel he was auditing the I.R.S.’s screening of politically active groups seeking tax exemptions on June 4, 2012. He told Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly after,” he said. That meant Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.
The disclosure last summer came as part of a routine briefing of the investigations that the inspector general would be conducting in the coming year, and he did not tell the officials of his conclusions that the targeting had been improper, he said.
Treasury officials stressed they did not know the results until March 2013, when the inspector presented a draft.
“Treasury strongly supports the independent oversight of its three inspectors general, and it does not interfere in ongoing I.G. audits,” the department said in a statement Friday evening.
Still, Inspector General J. Russell George’s testimony fueled efforts by Congressional Republicans to ensnare Mr. Obama in the scandals suddenly swirling over the White House. Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who joined the national ticket as the vice-presidential nominee last year, said of the revelation, “That raises a big question.”
Republicans hit hard on the divulging of confidential tax information, hinting of intimidation not only by the I.R.S. but also by the White House.
In March 2012, the Human Rights Campaign and The Huffington Post made public confidential tax documents from the National Organization for Marriage. The Human Rights Campaign said it obtained the documents from a “whistle-blower” who mailed them to the gay rights group’s Washington headquarters.
In a similar incident, ProPublica, an investigative journalism Web site, asked the I.R.S.’s Cincinnati office for the applications of 67 nonprofits, both liberal and conservative. When the I.R.S. responded, it inadvertently included applications for nine conservative groups that had not yet been granted tax-exempt status, a violation of confidentiality law.
When ProPublica realized what it had — including the application from Crossroads GPS, the conservative group founded by Karl Rove and other Republican strategists — it alerted the I.R.S., which warned the journalists that “publishing unauthorized returns or return information was a felony” punishable by up to five years in prison. ProPublica ProPublica redacted certain details and published the documents anyway.
Representative Peter Roskam, Republican of Illinois, hit on a different explanation. “On the one hand, you’re arguing today that the I.R.S. is not corrupt, but the subtext of that is you’re saying, ‘Look, we’re just incompetent,’ ” Mr. Roskam said. “It is a perilous pathway to go down.”
One release that turned out to be advertent was last Friday’s disclosure of the agency’s conservative targeting. Steven Miller, the ousted acting commissioner of the I.R.S., confessed that the agency’s apology was prompted by a question planted by the agency at an American Bar Association meeting. At that meeting, Lois Lerner, the head of the I.R.S.’s division overseeing tax-exempt organizations, was asked about an inquiry into the targeting issue, eliciting an apology that quickly leaked out of the closed-door session. The I.R.S. then scrambled to issue a formal release on the issue.
Mr. Miller divulged that the exchange was not an impromptu apology but a planned exchange between Ms. Lerner and Celia Roady, a tax lawyer at the Washington office of the Morgan Lewis law firm. That revelation only underscored the ham-handed way the scandal has burst into view.
Under fire, Mr. Miller called the agency’s targeting of conservative groups “obnoxious,” but he told the House Ways and Means Committee it was not motivated by partisanship. And in testy exchanges, he said he had not misled Congress, even though he did not divulge the targeting efforts of a Cincinnati unit examining 70,000 applications for tax exemption.
He called the group’s centralization of applications from groups with names that included the words “Tea Party” or “patriots” simply “foolish mistakes” that “were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selection.”
Krauthammer: If White House Had Any Connection To IRS Scandal, It Will Be ‘Fatal Problem’ For Obama
Glenn Beck » IRS And Intimidation
Glenn Beck Ties Together Benghazi, IRS, & AP Scandals ‘Fundamental Transformation’
Glenn Beck – IRS targeted conservatives
IRS Admits Targeting Conservatives – TheBlazeTV – The Glenn Beck Radio Program – 2013.05.10
Lou Dobbs Rips ‘Nixonian’ Obama For Lying ‘Through His Teeth’ About IRS ‘President Who Has Lost His
PAUL RYAN Destroys IRS Commissioner Steven Miller at House Hearing
Paul Steiger: The ProPublica Story
ProPublica founder and CEO, Paul Steiger, on the creation of this foundation-funded investigative newsroom, the challenges they faced and their plans for the future. ProPublica is the first online-only organization to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Paul Steiger: The ProPublica Story part 2
Paul Steiger: The ProPublica Story part 3
Paul Steiger: The ProPublica Story part 4 Q&A
Paul Steiger: The ProPublica Story part 5 Q&A
Jon Stewart Totally DESTROYS Obama Administration Over IRS Scandal | A MUST WATCH
IRS scandal widens
Ex-commissioner on tea party scandal: IRS did “the wrong thing”
Tea Party IRS Investigations Not Politically Motivated? ‘How Stupid Do They Think We Are’
IRS in the spotlight: What’s a 501(c)(4)? By Martina Stewart, CNN
Deceptive Dollars Tied To 501(c)(4) Groups
Mark Levin Dissects Obama, The IRS & The Republican Party in Scandal – Sean Hannity – 5-13-13
Mark Levin Attacks Obama & ‘Impotent’ House GOP Over IRS Scandal ‘Absolutely Unacceptable’
Glenn Beck: Failure to Impeach Over IRS Scandal Means America ‘Already Operating Under Tyranny’
CU President David Bossie on Fox News (02/19/2013)
President Obama Calls IRS Targeting of Conservative, Tea Party Groups ‘Outrageous’
Obama Administration – The I.R.S. Targets Teaparty and Patriot Groups for Review
IRS Gave Higher Scruity to Tea Party, Conservatives According to Document Draft
Political Firestorm Erupts in IRS ‘Tea Party’ Scandal
Tea Party Patriots Jenny Beth Martin Talks ‘IRS Scandal’ with Lou Dobbs – 5-13-13
IRS Caught in the Act – Jenny Beth Martin CBS This Morning 051113
Senator Rand Paul Discusses IRS Scandal & Enemies List with Sean Hannity – 5-13-13
IRS Issues Apology For Targeting Tea Party & PATRIOT Groups! “Definitely 1st Amendment Concerns Here
IRS Targets Tea Party Groups During 2012 Election
Rep. Issa Rips Obama Over IRS Scandal: ‘How Dare The Admin Imply’ They’ll ‘Get To The Bottom Of It’
Progressive Group: IRS Gave Us Conservative Groups’ Confidential Docs
The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt status was pending.
The commendable admission lends further evidence to the lengths the IRS went during an election cycle to silence tea party and limited government voices.
ProPublica says the documents the IRS gave them were “not supposed to be made public”:
The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year… In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made sixof those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)
The group says that “no unapproved applications from liberal groups were sent to ProPublica.”
According to Media Research Center Vice President for Business and Culture Dan Gainor, ProPublica’s financial backers include top progressive donors:
ProPublica, which recently won its second Pulitzer Prize, initially was given millions of dollars from the Sandler Foundation to “strengthen the progressive infrastructure”–“progressive” being the code word for very liberal. In 2010, it also received a two-year contribution of $125,000 each year from the Open Society Foundations. In case you wonder where that money comes from, the OSF website is http://www.soros.org. It is a network of more than 30 international foundations, mostly funded by Soros, who has contributed more than $8 billion to those efforts.
On Friday, the House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to hold a formal hearing on the IRS conservative targeting scandal. IRS Commissioner Steve Miller and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George are slated to testify.
More trouble for the IRS: The same office that singled out conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status also leaked confidential information about conservative groups last year, ProPublica reports. How does ProPublica know? Well, because the nine pending applications were leaked to ProPublica in the first place. The investigative site had asked to see the applications for 67 nonprofits and the IRS’ Cincinnati office sent over 31, nine of which had not been approved yet, meaning they were supposed to be confidential.
ProPublica was interested in the applications because it was revealing how social-welfare nonprofits, which don’t have to identify their donors and can spend money on elections as long as social welfare is their primary goal, misled the IRS when applying for tax-exempt status. Among the applications released to ProPublica: Karl Rove’s Crossroads group, which had promised to spend only “limited” money on 2012 elections and ended up spending more than $70 million. Also included were five other groups that all claimed they would not spend any money to sway the elections and spent more than $5 million. ProPublica reported on all six (here and here). Interestingly, the New York Times reported today that Crossroads and other larger groups were not subjected to the same intense scrutiny the IRS applied to small Tea Party groups; click for more on that.
ProPublica is the brainchild of Herbert and Marion Sandler, the former chief executives of the Golden West Financial Corporation, who have committed $10 million a year to the project.[8] The Sandlers hired Paul Steiger, former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, to create and run the organization as editor in chief. At the time ProPublica was set up, Steiger responded to concerns about the role of the Sandlers’ political views, saying on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer:
Coming into this, when I talked to Herb and Marion Sandler, one of my concerns was precisely this question of independence and nonpartisanship… My history has been doing ‘down the middle’ reporting. And so when I talked to Herb and Marion I said ‘are you comfortable with that?’ They said ‘absolutely’. I said ‘well suppose we did an expose of some of the left leaning organizations that you have supported or that are friendly to what you’ve supported in the past’. They said ‘no problem’. And when we set up our organizational structure, the board of directors, on which I sit and which Herb is the chairman, does not know in advance what we’re going to report on.[9]
ProPublica has attracted attention for the salaries it pays its top executives.[12][13] The head of ProPublica, Paul Steiger, was paid $571,687 in 2008, according to the company’s tax filings.[14] The managing editor, Stephen Engelberg, was paid $343,463.[15][16] The large salaries have been widely criticized by other journalists and even some in the non-profit world as excessive.[17][17][18] Steiger is the former managing editor at the Wall Street Journal. Engelberg is a former New York Times editor who co-wrote the non-fiction book Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, with Times reporter Judith Miller. He was recently elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board.
Awards
In 2010, ProPublica jointly won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting (it was also awarded to another new organization for a different story), for “a story that chronicles the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital’s exhausted doctors when they were cut off by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.”[19] It was written by ProPublica’s Sheri Fink and published in the New York Times Magazine[6] as well as on ProPublica.org.[7] This was the first Pulitzer awarded to an online news source.[4][5] That investigation also won a National Magazine Award for reporting.
In 2011, ProPublica won its second Pulitzer Prize.[20] Reporters Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein won the Pulitzer for National Reporting for their series, The Wall Street Money Machine. This was the first time a Pulitzer was awarded to a group of stories not published in print.
ProPublica’s reporters have also received the Selden Ring, George Polk, National Magazine, Society of Professional Journalists, James Aronson, ABA Silver Gavel, Overseas Press Club, Online Journalism, Investigative Editors and Reporters, Society of News Design, Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and Dart Center awards (among others) for their work.
Reception
Praise
ProPublica is also renowned for conducting a large-scale, circumscribed investigation on Psychiatric Solutions, a company based in Tennessee that buys failing hospitals, cuts staff, and accumulates profit.[21] The report covered patient deaths at numerous Psychiatric Solutions facilities, the failing physical plant at many of their facilities, and covered the State of Florida‘s first closure of Manatee Palms Youth Services, which has since been shut down[22] by Florida officials once again.[23] Their report was published in conjunction with The Los Angeles Times.
Criticism
Dave Kopel, a policy analyst for the libertarianCato Institute and a former columnist for the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News, criticized a ProPublica report on hydraulic fracturing as a “one-sided series of facts arrayed to support a point of view”. He argued that a common theme in ProPublica’s work is that “the government is not doing a good enough job in controlling things, particularly things involving big business”.[24] ProPublica later responded to his article, countering those claims and saying quote, “using carefully culled quotations and selected statistics, Kopel asserts ‘indisputably false facts’ in ProPublica’s reporting.” [25]
After fallout from the IRS publicly admitting to targeting conservative tax exempt groups for added scrutiny, ProPublica broke the news that it had requested and received confidential pending applications for groups requesting tax exempt status.
^“About Us”. Retrieved 2009-01-11. ProPublica is a Dog Latin term literally meaning “for the public woman”; cf. publica.
^ “a story that chronicles the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital’s exhausted doctors when they were cut off by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.” – Pulitzer.org The 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winners: Investigative Reporting, accessed 13 April 2010
Claim: Obama Campaign Co-Chair Attacked Romney with Leaked IRS Docs
One of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign co-chairmen used a leaked document from the IRS to attack GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney during the 2012 election, according to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).
NOM, a pro-traditional marriage organization, claims the IRS leaked their 2008 confidential financial documents to the rival Human Rights Campaign. Those NOM documents were published on the Huffington Post on March 30, 2012. At that time, Joe Solmonese, a left-wing activist and Huffington Post contributor, was the president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Solmonese was also a 2012 Obama campaign co-chairman.
Both the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein and HRC described the leak as coming from a “whistleblower.” The Huffington Post used the document to write a story questioning former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s support for traditional marriage. The document showed Romney donated $10,000 to NOM. HRC went a step further than the Huffington Post in its criticism of Romney and accused him of using “racially divisive tactics” in a press release.
Solmonese, then still the HRC’s president, said in the release he felt Romney’s “funding of a hate-filled campaign designed to drive a wedge between Americans is beyond despicable.”
“Not only has Romney signed NOM’s radical marriage pledge, now we know he’s one of the donors that NOM has been so desperate to keep secret all these years,” Solmonese added.
Solmonese resigned his position at HRC the next day and took up a position as an Obama campaign co-chair. He had announced the then-pending resignation from HRC the previous autumn.
NOM announced Tuesday that it will sue the IRS for this alleged leak. Under immense political pressure, Attorney General Eric Holder launched a criminal investigation into the IRS’s actions. Congress will conduct ts own investigation.
In early April 2012, NOM published documents which it said showed this leaked confidential information did not come from a “whistleblower” but “came directly from the Internal Revenue Service and was provided to NOM’s political opponents, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).”
NOM discovered that when HRC published its confidential financial documents, it failed to conceal the source of the documents. “After software removed the layers obscuring the document, it is shown that the document came from the Internal Revenue Service,” NOM asserted in its April 2012 release.
“The top of each page says, ‘THIS IS A COPY OF A LIVE RETURN FROM SMIPS. OFFICIAL USE ONLY,’” the statement continues. “On each page of the return is stamped a document ID of ‘100560209.’ Only the IRS would have the Form 990 with ‘Official Use’ information.”
NOM president Brian Brown argued in that April 2012 release that the leak was made to benefit President Obama’s re-election campaign against Romney, his GOP challenger. “The American people are entitled to know how a confidential tax return containing private donor information filed exclusively with the Internal Revenue Service has been given to our political opponents whose leader also happens to be co-chairing President Obama’s reelection committee,” Brown said.
“It is shocking that a political ally of President Obama’s would come to possess and then publicly release a confidential tax return that came directly from the Internal Revenue Service,” he declared. “We demand to know who is responsible for this criminal act and what the Administration is going to do to get to the bottom of it.”
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‘Now that you have him,’ host Chris Cuomo asked, ‘have they been able to diagnose anything that substantiated the concerns?’
Holly Paz
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The Pronk Pops Show 392, December 19, 2014, Story 1: Race Racketeers Shakedown SONY — Reverend Rat Al Sharpton of The Alinsky A Team On The Case — National Action Network Payday — Remember What Happened To Al Capone Reverend Rat — Obama Says SONY Made A Mistake — SONY Responds — Cyber Warfare Is An Act of War Not A Criminal Act — CIA Take Out Anyone? — Lights Out — Videos
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The Pronk Pops Show Podcasts
Pronk Pops Show 392: December 19, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 391: December 18, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 390: December 17, 2014
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Pronk Pops Show 388: December 15, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 387: December 12, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 386: December 11, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 385: December 9, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 384: December 8, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 383: December 5, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 382: December 4, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 381: December 3, 2014
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Pronk Pops Show 379: November 26, 2014
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Pronk Pops Show 376: November 21, 2014
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Pronk Pops Show 374: November 19, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 373: November 18, 2014
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Pronk Pops Show 351: October 17, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 350: October 16, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 349: October 15, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 348: October 14, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 347: October 13, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 346: October 9, 2014
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Pronk Pops Show 344: October 6, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 343: October 3, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 342: October 2, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 341: October 1, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 340: September 30, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 339: September 29, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 338: September 26, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 337: September 25, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 336: September 24, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 335: September 23 2014
Pronk Pops Show 334: September 22 2014
Pronk Pops Show 333: September 19 2014
Pronk Pops Show 332: September 18 2014
Pronk Pops Show 331: September 17, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 330: September 16, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 329: September 15, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 328: September 12, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 327: September 11, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 326: September 10, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 325: September 9, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 324: September 8, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 323: September 5, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 322: September 4, 2014
Pronk Pops Show 321: September 3, 2014
Story 1: Race Racketeers Shakedown SONY — Reverend Rat Al Sharpton of The Alinsky A Team On The Case — National Action Network Payday — Remember What Happened To Al Capone Reverend Rat — Obama Says SONY Made A Mistake — SONY Responds — Cyber Warfare Is An Act of War Not A Criminal Act — CIA Take Out Anyone? — Lights Out — Videos
U.S. Blames North Korea for Hack Attack Against Sony
White House considers response to Sony attack
Bureau 121: North Korea has secret cyberwar network
Obama Criticizes Sony + Hackers Push the Blackmail + Another Movie Cancelled – The Know
Obama vows response to ‘N Korea cyber attack’
PRIME TIME NEWS 22:00 FBI blames N. Korea for Sony hacking
How did North Korea pull off cyberattack?
Bill Whittle: Lights Out! The Chaos When Our Grid Goes Down
Greta: Sony chief Pascal pathetic for meeting with Sharpton
Amy Pascal fell for the Rev. Al Sharpton’s bait and met with him for racially insensitive emails leaked during the Sony hack attack. But that doesn’t solve anything
Watch the video about On Air, Entertainment, On The Record, Personality, Greta Van Susteren, Movies,
The Interview Official Trailer (2014) – Seth Rogen, James Franco Movie HD
“Yes, I think they made a mistake.” President Obama on Sony Hack (C-SPAN)
Sony CEO: We did not make a mistake
Sony Pictures execs apologize for slamming Jolie, Obama
Bill Whittle THE NEW BARBARISM, Obama, Wric Holder, Al Sharpton
Andrew Klavan: Black Leader Al Sharpton
Al Sharpton is a Dirty Rat…
Barack Obama is a CRIMINAL (Still Lying About Benghazi)…
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Sony Responds To President Obama’s Criticism: “We Had No Choice,” Still Hope To Release ‘The Interview’
by Jen Yamato
Following a public rebuke from President Obama for caving to terrorist demands, Sony Pictures restated their commitment to getting The Interviewseen by audiences. Here’s the studio’s official statement, on the heels of CEO Michael Lynton’s defensive appearance on CNN:
Related: George Clooney On Hollywood’s Failure To Back Sony In Cyberterror Attack
“The unfortunate part is… The President, the press, and the public are mistaken as to what actually happened. We do not own movie theaters. We cannot decide what will be played in movie theaters,” Lynton told CNN.
“I think (Sony) made a mistake,” President Obama said earlier on Friday in a press conference addressing the Sony hacking attack, which the FBI said the North Korean government was responsible for. “That’s not what America is about… I wish they’d spoken to me first. I would have told them, ‘Do not get into a pattern in which you’re intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks’.”
Related: Everything On The Sony Hack So Far
In his CNN interview set to air in full on Anderson Cooper’s AC360 at 5PM PT/8PM ET, Lynton made a point of contradicting Obama’s statement that Sony had not asked for his help.
“I did reach out,” said Lynton, who said Sony indeed sought assistance from the President. “We definitely spoke to a senior advisor in the White House to talk about the situation. The White House was certainly aware of the situation.”
“Yeah, I would make the movie again,” he said. “I think, you know, for the same reasons we made it in the first place – it was a funny comedy, it served as political satire. I think we would have made the movie again. Knowing what I know now, we might have, uh, done some things slightly differently, but I think a lot of events have overtaken us in a way that we had no control over the facts.”
Related: Sony Has “No Further Release Plans” For ‘The Interview’ On VOD Or Elsewhere
Lynton says Sony still wants The Interview to be seen and is considering their options. Those include DVD and Blu-ray home video, YouTube, VOD, and other digital platforms but “there has not been one major VOD distributor, one major e-commerce site that has stepped forward and said they are willing to distribute this movie for us,” he said.
“We would still like the public to see this movie, absolutely.”
http://deadline.com/2014/12/sony-president-obama-the-interview-response-1201330799/
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